Letting Down Your Hair

Rapunzel was no ordinary young lassie of ivory skin, and locks of gold. For those locks could only compare to the length of the Milky Way itself. Tangled threads that waived itself though the cracks of an old water tower; long since dry. She was hiding from her parents, whom didn’t understand why she kept her hair like that. As if it were the stings that held up her life together. No one understood the life of an heiress that had to maintain her well groomed appearance every second of every hour of the day. Her one act of rebellion had gone untamed for too long and here she hid herself.

A mere barber’s son notices these stings tickling his face. He had been sleeping under the tower after ditching his work of sweeping the shop. “Hair? What on earth. Just when I got sick of looking at this stuff it comes to haunt me.” He moves to yank it and hears a feminine voice call out in pain. Blinking to look up. “Any one up there?” he asks. It had simply been a stain that had not been bundled by Rapunzel’s feet.

“No, go away!” the young girl said making the boy sweat dropped. “Are you hiding from your folks too?” he asked her making Rapunzel moved to peek out the tower. A mess of yellow gold for locks. “So what if I am” she huffed, her eyes red from tears. “Nothing….just…I am too” he admitted. She paused watching the young boy with a mop of short brown untamed hair.

“Do you want to hide up here with me?” she finally asked. Finding him interesting enough to pass the time with. He sounded like her, maybe he could understand her. He looked at the floor for a moment, with its shattered wood. “Couldn’t even if I wanted to, looks like you broke the ladder” he said. Making her pause but an idea sprung forth. It was not the only thing to spring, for her hair was thrown from the tower down to him. “Climb on up then” she said and though at first he cringed at the weave of sunshine kissed mess, he climbed up. Seeing her fully for the first time; not much younger than him. “My names Rapunzel” she said to him. “My names ____” responding to her. Maybe hair wasn’t so bad a thing, when you let it down.