salon in the park

In a park at the heart of this city, a young Asian man cuts hair. His origins are a mystery, as are his motives.

To avoid confusion, he cuts hair that is not his own and does so, ostensibly at least, with the owner's consent.

I know this because I have seen him, seen it, twice.

The first time I saw him my eyes did not linger. I was munching on a salad and reading something frivolous, as one does on lunch break following a hectic morning at work; he was sitting on a bench not far from me in a way which suggested that he was expecting company.

He looked exactly how a local would describe as the look of a typical young Japanese tourist: hat, T shirt, board shorts, backpack, shoulder-length surfie hair. Nothing about him gave it away.

Soon he was met by a girl. A lunch date seemed imminent. My voyeuristic tendencies not being so wide-reaching, I withdrew what little attention I had scattered in that direction.

The next time I looked up the pair had moved to a bench further away, and he was doing the Edward Scissorhands on her.

My immediate haphazard interpretation of these confusing images amounted to not more than: what a romantic date.

The next day (or was it the one after), I was at my bench again, and he at his. But in place of the girl was ... a man or a woman I do not recall, save for the impression that it was a different person. The newly constituted pair moved to the same further-away bench, and the man and his tools were at it again.

I told myself that if I saw him a third time I would ask for a quote. I haven't seen him since.

Is he a trainee hairdresser hungry for practice? A hobo with a modest but dignified means of survival? Or a visionary of the underground, a revered enigma, who has vowed to rid the world of bad hair, one comb-over at a time? I may never know.