My transformation began with a single wiry hair—long, grey, jagged at the end—sprouting from under my chin where the flesh is doughiest. I’d always uprooted these rogue hairs as soon as they reared their monstrous heads (as a girl I was taught to be meticulous when it came to my appearance) but on this day it became apparent there was no longer any point in doing so. It was July, the middle of the wettest winter on record for my highland town. A few days prior, I had resigned from my job of thirty years as head of the Arts department at the local high school, and I had no foreseeable plans to leave the house. It began as a kind of game, seeing how long this hair on my chin would grow and if others would join it. The moment I turned fifty, it was as if some signal went off that gave my body permission to betray me, its groundskeeper, who had maintained it for all these years.
It was around this time I began watching a documentary program called Life of Bears. This program followed a mother grizzly named Sally as she raised her three cubs in the Canadian Rockies. Every afternoon, after I’d read a few chapters of my crime novel, I’d settle down on the plush couch, use the small silver remote to open the streaming service application on the television and click to play the next episode. There were many programs on this service, however this one I enjoyed especially. I admired Sally as if she were my more-accomplished friend. She was a caring but tough mother, with wise eyes and a cheeky, upturned lip. Her fur was a luxurious golden-brown and, I imagined, marvellously warm.
As the rain poured down outside, I found myself raising the heater and wrapping myself in increasing layers of clothing and blankets. The curtains I kept drawn but, occasionally, I would go to the front window to gaze at the water running like rapids down the rusted gutters and into the flower beds. The creek at the bottom of my quiet lane, I knew, would be overflowing.
After this first revelation, many of the other things I usually did to upkeep my appearance I soon parted with. The first of these was the shaving of my body hair—it was far too cold to stand outside the hot shower water in any case. Stubble broke out on my armpits, my legs. A furring took place in my middle. At moments throughout the day, I’d run my palms across my calves subconsciously, relishing in the prickle. I also began eating a larger amount of food. It was not that I’d kept to an especially strict diet before, but now I no longer held myself back in any way. I ate whatever I felt like, whenever I felt like it, and oftentimes these meals were not altogether healthy. The kitchen bin filled up with chip packets, chocolate and biscuit wrappers, and the packaging from boxes of mini cupcakes meant for children’s parties. Gradually, I felt myself taking up more space, body expanding. I didn’t cut my nails nor pluck my eyebrow or moustache hairs. For the first time in my life, no longer being hacked at or maimed, my body was free to grow.
I continued to watch the documentary every day, sometimes allowing myself up to three episodes at once and dozing off on the couch afterwards, the rain lulling me to sleep. There was one most riveting episode in which Sally fought off a large male bear after her cubs. Her ferocity on this occasion frightened me—her fur shaking like a big wool carpet as she thrashed her teeth around. Yet I admired her for this motherly defensiveness, as it was something I’d never been able to cultivate in myself. This was the reason, I suppose, for why I’d never married nor had children of my own. These things weren’t for everybody—I knew that. I’ll admit, the students in my art classes at the high school I could hardly tolerate. Never did they wash their brushes in the sink as I instructed and they’d make phallic shapes out of clay. It was the few quiet, creative ones that I could handle. They sat alone in the front row with their quirky accessories. No, I much preferred to be in my own company. When I was young, my mother had always said I had a creative brain and she explained to me that the reason I didn’t get along with my classmates was because I was mature for my age.
One night, towards the middle of August, the power cut out during strong winds, and after that I couldn’t get the heating to turn back on again. I was aware I ought to call someone to come and repair it, but my home had become to feel very private and I couldn’t bring myself to allow an intruder inside. Instead, I went to my closet and took out the fur coat I’d purchased on holiday in Milan during my twenties. The fur was long and brown, and I liked to imagine it was Sally wrapped around my shoulders. I wore this coat constantly and even stopped showering to avoid taking it off. As a consequence, my hair became dry and matted with oil. I was aware of how wild I must have looked—how filthy—but felt merry and accomplished in what I saw in the mirror. I was making progress.
With all the junk food in the house consumed, I used my old laptop to place an online order of groceries and the delivery man left them at my door the next morning. I’d begun to feel guilty about my bad eating habits and so the bags consisted almost exclusively of fresh salmon and different types of berries. The salmon came in bags which I stored in the freezer and defrosted as needed, and the berries were all in punnets in the fridge—a spectrum of mauve, magenta, crimson. I ate these foods like an animal—sat in front of the television with the documentary playing, I’d use my fingers to shovel the salmon and berries into my mouth, allowing the oil and juice to run down my chin. Never before had food tasted so sustaining. It pleased me that this new diet also seemed to accelerate my hair growth. Peach-fuzz sprouted in places I didn’t think possible—my chest, my shoulders, my neck. The hairs on my legs became so long and thick I could no longer see skin between them.
In the documentary, Sally and her cubs were preparing for hibernation. Guided by Sally’s wisdom, they were eating less and spent most of the day sleeping in a den she had dug for them high up in the snowy mountains. Watching their soft sleeping faces, I fell deeper into lethargy myself. Soon unable to leave the television, I moved all my bedding, cushions, and blankets from around the house into the living room and arranged them around the couch. This is where I slept in the darkness, abandoning the clock. A few times a day I’d resurface from unconsciousness, let out a satisfying beastly groan, and watch an episode of the documentary before falling asleep again. It was in this way that the remaining weeks of the winter passed by, with me submitting myself to the dreary cold.