The Barber of Meadowlake

The Dior collection runway event would appear on YouTube, but the images would not be flat enough for La Betty; La Betty preferred colossally retouched still shots of humans, even black and white pictures, on condition they did not accentuate skin texture. La Betty recoiled at three-dimensional verisimilitude, and thus she was cautious deciding which shows to watch on her laptop, her 4K Ultra HD TV, her Iphone or her Ipad. La Betty felt disdain toward fashion show videos. The hustle bustle, the jumble of colours, the loud apparently hip music filtered through worshipful commentary, this excitement was to La Betty an undulating nest of stinging insects. La Betty could not and would not concede that even in the digital era video should be considered necessary for contemporary websites.

La Betty adored viewing images of people stationary as silent icons. Naturally La Betty could be wild about select three-dimensional material objects, especially if the stylishness of their documentation aroused La Betty’s will to possess. But it was as impossible as it was offensive for La Betty to identify with moving, talking humans.

La Betty was a loyal fan of Vogue.com’s documentation of seasonal haute couture collections. La Betty was grateful that Vogue’s gorgeous colour photographs of motionless models had continued to be popular. The torpid statuesque models in artificially elegant poses were the apex of sophistication – safely and immeasurably superficial.

This year’s photographs of the Christian Dior Fall collection enthralled La Betty. Each beguiling photograph ushered La Betty into a state of bliss. La Betty would savour the colours, the structure and the mien of each costume. The fixed painted faces of the models never quite reminded La Betty of humans. Each outfit could be experienced as an inorganic object.

La Betty was studying a dreamy dress. The ankle length skirt was subtly bell-shaped, with a wide waistband and a dark thunderous purple skirt. The colour of the tight long sleeve top was Japanese Black plum. The blond model’s face was anemic. Her eyes were pitiless blue ice. The model’s hair was as white as Andy Warhol’s wig, cropped somewhat roughly and short, almost as tousled as a stork’s nest. At the bottom of the photograph, oddly, in tiny font, La Betty read, “Coiffure by the Barber of Meadowlake, barberofmedowlake.com.”

Ordinarily a hairstylist would not be credited in Dior runway photos. Curious, La Betty typed in the website address. The website was, it seemed at first, a photo of a barbershop mirror. The mirror was decorated with a tortuously carved dark walnut frame. The reflection in the mirror was of the window to its right, and also the reflection of a reflection of the hair tonic bottles on the shelf in front of the mirror. Startled, La Betty glimpsed a reflection of a man, or a pale marble bust of a man. His shirt seemed lightly starched. Remarkably a lit cigarette drooped from the sculpture man’s lips. And more remarkably every strand of the sculpture man’s white hair was precisely the same as the Dior model’s.

La Betty instantly concluded that the sculpture man was a ghost, a forlorn, disillusioned weakling, a spiteful imp determined to bewitch La Betty. These perverse interruptions by aggressive anti-consumerist phantoms too often appeared when La Betty was most serenely happy; when La Betty was most settled in a materialistic trance. Now La Betty was alerted and scornful. She braced herself to foil this presumptuous spirit by uttering a litany of powerful slogans,

Enjoy the power. Pure water. Pure gold. Pure bliss. It takes the waiting out of wanting

whatever makes you happy, Purely You.

The listless sculpture man inhaled deeply. The end of the cigarette glowed like a stoplight. The sculpture man raised the cigarette above his head while exhaling a grand silver cloud. “Face it, “ he spoke melodiously, “There’s really nothing worth wishing or working for. You will live longer when you’re apathetic. You can smoke and drink shamelessly; forget the whole damn thing.” La Betty’s rebuttal was forceful,

Take time out for beauty. Not only looks better, but just is.

La Betty was chagrined that she could not remember the name of the company that had presented these ideas to tempt customers.

The sculpture man lurched as if the word beauty was a jolt of electricity. He dissolved into a dozen grand silver clouds. La Betty slammed down the lid of her laptop like a woman slamming shut a window, a window that belongs exclusively to her.