I trust those echoing cries are but a figment of my ever-fraying mind. I welcome the madness, now; perhaps it might offer succor, some measure of release from the guilt of what I’ve done.

I warned him, the damn fool. Gods be merciful, I warned him. And yes, I admit it – I followed him down that hair-streaked path. Aided and abetted; perhaps my complicity may in some measure make me culpable for those unearthly events, whose creeping specter haunts my waking hours. But as I pen my recollection of those spine-crawling phenomena, memories which even now summon the distant snipping of phantom clippers to my tortured ears, I beg you to believe me ignorant of their true import – I knew not then the bewitching danger of that siren Hair Queen, nor the hideous strength of those damnable Killing Goods.

I first encountered my associate Kiku in a ramshackle salon, seeking shelter from the pelting rain of one more malevolent New England downpour. Oh, how the hills of that forsaken land breathe with foul intent! But I digress.

Steeped in shadow, his distinctive hair-tuft mutton chops and the ominous shears at his side branded him as some manner of ne’er-do-well. He had a wild look about him, and spoke like a man possessed – like a man whose very actions were driven by the contrivances of poorly conceived narrative inevitabilities. However, his easy manner and clear passion for our mutual craft won me over in short order. We passed the time talking lightly of our trade, until, in a sharp crack of thunder, the figure lurking in his shadows was illuminated in sable and gray. As her frightful ebon tresses crossed my eyes, I could swear the wind whispered, gently, softly…

Episode 4

0:00: Her form mimicked that of a young girl, but I remained unconvinced. By some lamentable trick of her summation – perhaps that too-girlish curl of her cheek, or her bulbous, dinner-plate eyes – she came across as almost too much a young girl, like a proto-girl conjured by unpronounceable sorceries to disarm and provoke some feral protective instinct. She clung to my new companion with a tightness that belied all agency, as I struggled with my own unwelcome urges to pet her head.

0:15 – Gesturing wildly, he spoke in whispers of a great discovery, and I was forced to still my excitement. Could he have discovered some clue to reviving the dead, or perhaps a map to that accursed Lost City of Leng? No, he assured me. Apparently, his scissors could cut her very special hair.

He begged me for my aid, nigh-hysterical with the burden of these cutting shears, and also the hair. How could I refuse a fellow craftsmen?

Thus began, through a series of events remarkably improbable yet surprisingly tiresome and unworthy of recollection, my time shadowing Kiku and his majestic Hair Queen at a Japanese finishing school.

2:45 – In hushed tones, he haltingly admitted to having been cutting her hair on a daily basis. I laid a reassuring arm on his shoulder even as my mind reeled at the staggering depths of depravity to which my companion had descended. Yet I could not deny my own fascination with his journey, and perhaps even a hint of jealousy at the reckless abandon with which he had surrendered himself to the carnal pleasures of unchecked hair-cuttery.

3:03 – That silver-haired girl. Byouinzaka, she called herself – or at least, that was the pronunciation given her name by our course, mortal tongues. Her slack-eyed stare and lack of all emotional affect brought that Innsmouth look sharply to mind, with all its foul, fish-faced connotations.

3:21 – “You’re just a difficult person to approach,” my friend responded reassuringly, deftly failing to address her twin addictions to syringe injections and incestuous heavy petting.

3:47 – Kiku smiled at her, and for a moment I wondered if he himself were beginning to think her behavior normal. How far had his hair-raving madness spread?

4:25 – As the Innsmouthian needle-addict extended her arm towards the Hair Queen, I could not help but see the situation as some achingly misguided perversion of a classical love triangle. A cruel joke indeed

5:15 – A smile cracked the fish-woman’s face as the Queen forgave her, brightly forgetting her earlier attempts at obvious murder. But, I glumly reflected, in a world marked by Hair Queens and needle-obsessed fish-women, what’s a little attempted murder between friends?

6:37 – Despite all my protestations, as well as the direct premonition of the obvious consequences by the gutter-voiced fish-woman, Kiku resolved to accompany his Queen to an antique dealership her father frequented, despite living within a world whose sole distinctive feature was the presence of antique murder tools, murder tools which had in fact been used to kill that selfsame father who frequented that exact dealership. I resignedly shuffled behind, though my own steps were not marked by dramatic slow-pans and resolute sepia freeze-frames

6:57 – As the golden-haired maiden spoke, I could not help but wonder at her intonation. Could she be a child of fabeled kTsun Dhere? That lost land fabled for its mighty walled citadels and tendency towards swift, utterly disproportionate retaliation? I quelled my excitement forcefully, well aware of the danger any unchecked emotion might provoke in a kTsun Dherany rage-maiden.

8:05 – As Kiku gazed at the piano, my own thoughts turned to darker concerns; how simple would it be commit murder with such a device? After all, if syringes and hair shears were somehow comparable murder-tools to a sledgehammer, surely a piano might contain equivalent murder-relevant potential?

8:55 – Kiku’s steely gaze confirmed my own thoughts – he too had realized we were in the presence of an Author. I readied myself for action, but was struck dumb as Kiku continued his stare, which I now saw was in fact blank, and had not realized anything at all

11:41 – A second glance confirmed both our suspicions – the man did in fact have triangles for teeth

12:25 – The man’s words confirmed what I had suspected all along, the only rational conclusion – that the woman whose hair grew really long every night had the power to grant wishes

12:45 – Despite my distrust of saw-tooth’s sneer, I had to admit he had a rakish, anti-heroic charisma

13:09 – Sawtooth sneered, and then helpfully exposited both the first and last name of the woman who he already knew. I was grateful to receive the information

14:30 – As the rope dug in to the remarkably inept policewomen’s neck, Kiku stared grimly, waiting until all possible strangely sexualized camera angles could be exhausted. As the woman finally passed into unconsciousness and possible brain damage, he smartly cut the noose

14:55 – As the man explained his unearthly power, I realized Kiku had in fact not cut the rope, and had been merely standing and watching the woman die. The rope cut itself

15:14 – Did sawtooth consider himself Batman? Or perhaps Rorschach, but with a better suit? I pondered these questions gravely as a freeze-frame of Kiku’s face flashed backwards in a crude imitation of dramatic foreshadowing

16:33 – As I glumly wondered if my companions had realized the obvious implications of the amply bussomed woman’s song, the irritatingly PowerPoint-derivative freeze-frame once again answered the question for me

17:11 – As the policewoman lustily confessed to her perversion, I breathed a sigh of pity, confident in the relative mundanity of my own hair-related fantasies

18:15 – The stern fire-haired girl exposited glumly on the dalliances of the upper class, but my attention was drawn to the neon-painted ears, eyes, and lips that floated lasciviously before me. Was I losing my own grip on reality? Would I escape this hell with my sanity intact?

20:07 – “I’m deaf, so I wouldn’t understand that,” he explained to his lover of some number of years.

20:32 – Her lips parted in a seductive blush as they romantically explained to each other their roles and Killing Goods-related titles

Epilogue

As I tossed and turned in my unyielding bed, I reflected on the events of the day. What import could be drawn from their scattered and relentlessly sexualized nature? Perhaps some message on addiction… or perhaps… high society… or… the nature of perversion, and the commonalities of our human lusts?

No, I decided, breathing a sigh of relief and sinking into merciful slumber.

They didn’t mean anything at all.

And Done

Jesus christ you guys. Don’t expect me to do that again. Fuck.

This show’s still awesomely terrible though. See you next week.