7. Gonna be ok

While COVID-19 ravages the world, another devious contagion has been spreading from bubble to bubble. It's transmission vectors not backpacking 20-somethings, but hastily shot youtube tutorials. It's victims are often unsuspecting, the damage wrought by their own hands and its results displayed for the world to see.

OLSH-20 (Overconfident lockdown self hairstyling 2020) takes no prisoners.

As your intrepid reporter on the ground, I am currently bearing witness to yet another potential victim of this silent pandemic.

This one hits close to home - the one wielding the shears is my own girlfriend.

Luckily I'm about 10km away in the safety of my bubble watching on transfixed over houseparty.

She's promised she's just going to do her fringe, a pantheon of online beauty bloggers having blessed her with the prerequisite knowledge. She takes a deep breath. "It's gonna be ok", she says on the exhale. I'm not sure whether she's trying comfort me or herself.

She begins. Small, precise cuts starting at one end and moving along. She finishes and stares at herself in the mirror, her new fringe framing her face perfectly. I breathe a sigh of relief, maybe she won't be another statistic after all. "Great job babe!" I say to my screen - ever the supportive boyfriend.

"Yeah I'm actually pretty good at this huh" she says smiling as she begins to put the scissors down on the bench. Her hand pauses and I see a change slowly come across her face. A manic look in her eye accompanied by bared teeth and a devilish smile. Oh no. I've seen this before. The early symptoms of OLSH-20.

"Maybe I should keep going... just a little shorter on the fringe, a buzz cut down one side or should I just get rid of an eyebrow - what do you think babe?" She's dead serious.

"Hang on...." I begin, but it doesn't matter anymore. Her transformation from Fringe Frodo to GHD Gollum is already complete. I fall silent, theres a twisted part of me that wants to see what shes about to do - it would be perfect material for my blog. Her scissors slowly rise to her face, she's laughing now like Joaquin Phoenix in Joker and now ... so am I. The shaking hands, the bared teeth... OLSH-20, I think I've got it too.

My eyes are turning to the empty bowl of cereal to my right. Perfect.