Story fragment idea

[pegkerr]

Playing (i.e.; don't think I would write this; just toying with the idea):

"The Bone Comb."

A woman receives a comb made of bone (a legacy from an eccentric aunt who never married? found in a junk shop?) Attached to it is an elegantly handwritten note: "Do not use unless you are prepared to live with the consequences."

She uses the comb and is startled to discover that her hair starts falling out. Soon she is completely bald. She is angry at first, but then thinks about the note. Some assume she is going through chemotherapy. Some think she has alopecia. She tries going bald to work. Her husband's reaction? Does he reject her? She embraces the baldness, buys a tough-girl leather jacket. The leather jacket makes her feel like a completely different person; she experiments with going places she would never have thought to have gone before. More consequences follow this. She starts treating her identity as more malleable than she has ever done before.

Where does this story go? Does she encounter her inner artist, becoming a photographer, just as her eccentric aunt was a potter?

Comments

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

The whole story's been done before, really - woman receives forbidden object, uses against instructions, suffers dire consequences, yadda yadda yadda. In this case it happens to be hair loss, which, OK, you can buy a wig and live with it, unless there's more story to tell :-D