Story of The Uneven Eyebrows

"First take your razor like this" 7-year old Ellen took her father's disposable razor and held it in front of the mirror. "Then you shave a little bit on the top of your left eyebrow. Like this. See?" She shaved the top part of her right eyebrow. "Then continue with your right..." She shaved the top part of her left eyebrow.

"It is very easy as you can see. If you find it hard following my instructions, you may visit our main office at NCCC in Puerto Princessa. Look for the master shaver, Ellen, that's me!"

'Oh wait...maybe they'll really visit me, and I have nothing to show them.' Ellen thought.

"I'm kidding. Our office is in Payuyu Pension." She said out loud in front of the mirror.

'Phew that was close' she thought to herself. As she was talking, Ellen became less vigilant of where she was shaving.



"The next step to this demo, is to shave a little bit from the bottom of your eyebrow. Be very careful that you don't shave too much hair off, or else it will look too thin people will mistake you for a prostitute. Someone told me that. I'm not saying who."



Ellen noticed that the top part of her eyebrows are not even. She frowned at this.

"Sometimes, trimming your eyebrows can be tricky. So please stay with me as I show you how we can fix this."

She shaved her left eyebrow a little too much, so she then shaved her right to make the two even. Unfortunately it was still not even and her right eyebrow now only had countable amount of unshaven hair.



"Well... so that is how you shave your eyebrows, uhm... please stay tuned until next time only on Ellen's show. Goodbye!"



Ellen panicked. She wisely decided not to try to attempt fixing her rough, strongly unaligned, disaster of an eyebrow. Her heart beat became more extremely rapid.



Ellen grew up with numerous other girls, this includes her cousins, two sisters and her mother, Patty. She watched them conceal their faces with make-up and bathe themselves with sweetly fragrant perfume. Gently, they line their eyes with dark eyeliners to accentuate their large dark brown eyes. Her sisters with dark curly hair would take turns ironing each other's hair on the ironing board, pressing hard on each wave of their hair, for they could not afford straighteners. With great interest, she puckers her lips alongside her older sisters as they put on their bright blood-red lipsticks. More intense than ever, and with bout of profound curiousity, she watched as they pluck their eyebrows to perfect arches, more accurate than the "Arc de Triomphe" in Paris.



"Ellen you're not old enough my child" her mother reminded her. How she longed to be old enough to finally be able to do the same thing as her cousins and sisters. Now that her mother went away to Canada in order to support the whole family in the Philippines, Ellen has found more freedom. Also her older cousins and eldest sister, Anne, were already in college. So with less strict eyes on guard, Ellen has taken the liberty to do the things she was forbidden to do- to shave her eyebrows. And so here she was, in front of the mirror, in her heart deeply believing that somewhere out there someone is watching the "Ellen's show."



  "Oh no, I'm in big trouble." she said in realization. She took a small bath towel and wrapped it around her head, making sure her eyebrows were well hidden.





"Ate Jasmine, how long does it take for an eyebrow to grow?" Ellen asked her cousin who was busily folding clothes.

"I don't know. Maybe a month. I have no idea, I have never shaved." Ellen's cousin replied nonchalantly. "And why are you holding that towel over your head?" Jasmine questioned Ellen as she continued folding the clothes absentmindedly.

"Ah...it's very sunny today isn't it?"

By that, she bolted out of the room and went into her bedroom which she shared with her sister. Again, but now with hesitation, she looked into the mirror. "I think I did a good job." She groaned and sighed, and sunk into her soft bed. "Ellen?" a voice came from outside the room. Ellen quickly put on the bath towel over her disarrayed eyebrows. It was her sister Starlet Sterraine.

"Get out of the room please, I'm going to spray it with bug spray so we don't get malaria."

"Okay Ate (Sister in Filipino)."

"Mom always said to spray this, and to put on mosquito nets. You know if we don't pass the medical exam we won't be able to go to Canada?...Ellen? What's wrong with your head?"

"Nothing, nothing!"

"Oh my gosh! What did you do with your eyebrows?"

"I didn't do anything."

Laughter burst out of Ellen's sister. She called their brother, Gang-gang, and Jasmine their cousin, who, like a bullet left her folding to see what the commotion is all about. "Hey guys look who experimented with Papa's razor?" More laughter came.



Ellen could not help but feel endless shame, disgrace and embarrassment. She cried. She was supposed to start second grade in a week. What would her classmates say? What would Jesse think, her crush since the beginning of first grade? Would they laugh at her too? "We better do something about your eyebrows Ellen before Papa comes back." Her sister offered. Her brilliant brother Gang-gang thought of a perfect solution.



"Black marker should do." Starlet said with satisfaction as she drew symmetrical rainbows over Ellen's now non-existent eyebrows. "There!" Starlet exclaimed as if she had just completed a work of art.

"It stings!" Ellen cried out. The marker's ink stung her skin due to small cuts caused by the razor's sadist, sharp blades. She looked into the mirror. She almost fainted. Laughter came from every direction.



Ellen's father, Perry came home in utter shock. Three teenagers laughing their guts out, making unruly jokes while her poor youngest daughter was slumped on the bed crying her heart out. "Starlet! What have you done?" Perry questioned the eldest among all the teenagers gathered around exasperated Ellen, and who he assumed was responsible for this scene.

"Papa, I didn't do anything. It was Ellen, she shaved her eyebrows." Starlet defended.

"Ellen, look at me." Perry said sternly.

Ellen turned around ever so slowly, revealing her markered eyebrows.

Perry bit his lips. He held his laugh. With the speed of light, he bursted out of the room.



After things settled down, Perry forbade the use of black permanent marker. Starlet cheered up her sister by letting her borrow her eyeliner. Perry also forbade that for it stings Ellen's skin. "Just let it heal, don't put anymore things on there. It will get infected." he would say.



With all her options forbidden, she came to church with naked brows. She prayed it would grow very soon. Ellen even tried watering her brows to encourage growth. Her cousin Mercy, spread a rumour about her dilemma (talk about not having mercy) and even told Ellen's second grade teacher about it; it was a bad start for her. She came home swearing to never ever go out of the house anymore. When Monday came, and also the first day of second grade, she hid all her underwears and socks. Her cousins and sister looked everywhere for it.

"For goodness sake Ellen, where did you put it? We're going to be late." Starlet scolded Ellen.

She shook her head innocently.

"I don't know sis. But without underwear and socks I simply cannot go to school" she stated cooly with a sinister smile, her bald eyebrows coming toward each other.



"Here it is! It was inside the piano!" Ellen's cousin Gracie triumphantly declared.

'Oh uh' thought Ellen. She was doomed. There was no way out anymore. She has tried the 'I'm sick' excuse in the first grade a lot and she very well knew it would not work at all. Not at all.



It was then that something caught her eyes. Outside their house were sacks and sacks of black coals they used to fuel their cooking fire. "Perfect!" she thought.



Up to this day, Ellen still suffers from eyebrow dissonance. She has never perfected her eyebrows and has never since showed up to any of the "Ellen's Show" in front of her life-size mirror. Being a do-it-yourself instructor was not her thing, so she gave up her career. Instead, she overcomes her embarrassment by writing a story about her uneven eyebrows.





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