Even though Ben was hardly touching Ahmed, just lightly holding his upper arm, he felt like he was dragging him up the stairs. They pushed into the room and dropped their book bags and Ahmed came down into his desk chair. He looked totally blank, as though he were coming out of sedation after surgery. His longer hair lay over the bare strip, but there was a disturbing lack of volume there, as though Ahmed’s head had a deep dent in it. Ben had expected the Chute to put something disgusting in Ahmed’s bed or throw mugs of ice water on him in the shower.

“Stay there.” Ben left and came back with Jed’s hair clipper. “We have to do it all the way.”

Ahmed saw the clipper. “No—”

“We have to. How are you going to go around like that?”

“It is not meaningless! In Islam there are only certain times for that. And if my father sees—”

“He’s not going to see you. We’re going to cut this now so that it looks even, and then you’ll have months to let it grow in before you go home. It’ll be fine. And you never pray anyway.”

“But I should!”

“You have to cut it.”

Ben imagined Ahmed walking into the dining hall, trying to maintain that uprightness with this dent along his head. He pulled Ahmed to his feet and walked him over to stand in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the door.

“Look, Ahmed.” Hairs lined Ahmed’s collar and lay trapped in the fibers of his sweater.

Ahmed held back his hair so he could see the entire empty swath. He knew he looked just as foolish as they had wanted him to look. His forehead, cheeks, and lips grew heavier. It was painful for Ben to see.

“Well.” Ahmed paused. “If there is a reason.”

Ben folded back the corner of the carpet, then moved the chair to the bare floor in front of the mirror, and Ahmed sat. After a moment of thought, Ben draped one of his own towels over Ahmed’s shoulders to catch the hair. He plugged the clipper into the low outlet by the door. Ahmed’s face had set. Ben flipped the switch on the side of the clipper and it whirred warmly. Ben set the plate of the trimmer against the right side of Ahmed’s forehead, and as he pushed the blade through, the hair fell away with thrilling ease. Ahmed’s eyes were closed as the hair passed across them.

It fell onto Ahmed’s shoulders, his lap, the slim edge of the chair behind his back, the floor. The machine was quieter when there was hair in it, and so it got momentarily loud when it passed through the empty patch.