A hair
Sad but true.

I was a shy and awkward 17-year-old. It was 1991. There was a girl called Veronica (not her real name) who I had a massive crush on. I just didn't have the guts to let her know my feelings or for that matter, even know how to express them. One day on the school bus, Veronica was sitting on the seat in front of me. After she got up, I noticed she'd shed a hair. Although she was a dark-haired Italian lass, she had dyed it a slightly reddish/brownish-tint. A thought occurred to me. Maybe I could keep the hair myself. If I could keep the hair, I'd at least have a part of her. So I took the hair and sandwiched it between some folded over sellotape. This sellotape-encased hair was kept in my coat pocket and went with me everywhere I went. When I had my moments of teenaged-crush driven despair, I would bring out the hair and touch it (there was a small loop that stuck out the side of the sellotape encased part). I had part of Veronica that I could touch. It would create a bond she never even knew existed.

At the end of my next year, I finished school. I still had not expressed my love to Veronica. I was about to start University, and decided that it was time to move on and make a break with the past. I chose not to take the hair with me. However, I could not remember what I did with it. For all I knew, such was my determination to make a break with the past that I may have even thrown it away in a nearby canal. I soon completely forgot about it until...

Fast forward to 2001. I was visiting my parents for Christmas. I decided to look through one of my old drawers. And for the first time in nearly 10 years, I saw the hair. There it was in all it's dyed sellotape-encased sticking out loop glory. While I had long since moved on from Veronica, the hair was a link to the past. It now represented part of me that I could make a connection to - a metaphor for a temporal bridge to a time when things were different. When I left my parents, I took the hair with me this time. The following Valentine's eve, I decided to write a poem to the woman I had a crush on at the time. In order to assist with getting in touch with my inner sanctum, I placed the hair on my computer-desk along with other 'sacred objects' (metaphors for my inner sanctum) and composed a masterpiece (see future QOTW answer for the outcome to that one).

As for Veronica, about 2 years before the advent of Friendsreunited, someone had set up a similar website that was only meant for my old school. At first, most of the people on it were recent graduates, but there in the guestbook, was a message by Veronica complete with an e-mail address. At the time, I had just started a new job and moved to a new town so had other things to think about but cut 'n pasted the e-mail address. It was nearly 2 months before I wrote her an e-mail (this was before the rediscovery of the hair). I decided not to mention the crush but just told her about the Inter-rail journey I had been on the previous summer (where I visited her home country). The e-mail itself was easy to compose, but even so, it felt as if my left mouse-button had a massive spring underneath it when the cursor was hovering over the 'send' button. The next day, amongst all the usual office-banter e-mails, there was a response from Veronica. She had found a new boyfriend, moved to Miami and even sent me a picture of herself (she looked pretty much the same as I remembered her). I sent her back a picture of my own. We had a 3-year on/off (mostly off) e-mail correspondence, and finally in 2002 when I made my trip to the States, we met up in New York, I got to meet Veronica in person. We had a lot to talk about and we talked a lot. As a testament to our catching-up, she briefly mentioned that she was living in New York on the day that the events of September 11th happened and that topic did not even spark off a conversational branch at all. We talked about the school bus, our times since graduation and out travel-experiences. She even told me she felt flattered that I even remembered who I was. What I didn't tell her was that I once had a crush on her. She already had a boyfriend at the time, and my mind was elsewhere at the time, so it would have just been inappropriate. I never told her about the hair.

_{In fact, when this QOTW came up, I decided to rummage through my 'things' and I once again saw the hair.}
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 9 May 2008, 11:05, 6 replies)

Well written
But slightly creepy.

*clicks*
( Cawl, Fri 9 May 2008, 11:14, closed)

*sniff*
and *click*
( Tourette's ( . )( . ) has a monkey hair in her fried egg, Fri 9 May 2008, 11:27, closed)

hairy V
Why are you wasting time here? Go get her!
(Eds Meds Mathskillz=1,Socialskillz=0, Fri 9 May 2008, 13:28, closed)

I love
the name Veronica. Its my favourite. That, and Thelma.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 9 May 2008, 14:21, closed)

not a dig at the writer
but it pisses me off at the way we are so emotionally/politically crippled as to allow our language to be contorted into such spasms as "the day that the events of September 11th happened". I mean... surely 'September the 11th' would suffice?

Like I say, not a dig at the author, this is very much a universal cultural bludgeon affecting us all (politics and the English language, anyone?)
(pounana Slept well, and dreamed of large women, on, Sun 11 May 2008, 7:07, closed)

@pounana
I like to deliberately contort the language. It's just a form of word play.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Mon 12 May 2008, 10:49, closed)