The Rite of Patchyface

IT COMES IN THE NIGHT.

It comes unpredictably--not with the new moon or the Sabbath--but it does come, sure as the crashing tide.

No one knows why it comes. It comes for us one by one, slithering on its belly from turbid waters and descending upon its victims like a horrible living shroud.

No one knows why it comes. But when it does, and we hear its clarion call, we dare not ignore the summons. We are helpless to resist it; it has impelled our fathers and brothers for thousands of generations. It comes like a force of nature, and when it whispers we cannot but obey.

"Maybe I should try growing a beard."

Thus is the rite begun. Thus is the veneer of cultivation that makes us respected by our superiors and admired by our mates cast away. Thus is the care and forethought that is the hallmark of our very humanity and the essence of agriculture, trapmaking, and toolcraft swept away into barbarity and darkness, casualty of the rite.

The animal adapts to nature; the human commands it. Hairlessness is humanity's mark because of all the apes, only Human sees himself in glass and imagines a different face peering out at him than the one he sees. Of all the apes, only Human collects seeds and sows them in virgin ground; only Human creates shelter where there was none. When we answer the call of the rite and ignore this humanity in us, we touch a deeper heritage and a more remote ancestry: that of the feral ape.

Humanity is smoothness. To shave is to live.

And yet it's been 8 days. How long can I persist? How long can any of us resist our essential humanity?

Any how long before I hear the bellowing of that ancient ape again?