By one o'clock, Joe was standing in the manager's office at Burger World. His beard was long-gone and his hair didn't hang below his shoulders anymore; though his barbering had been unprofessional, with too much hair hacked from some patches and not enough from others, the cut was apparently good enough to satisfy the boss. Joe's bangs now ended an inch above his eyebrows, the hair at the nape of his neck had retreated far from his collar, and his ears were visible for the first time in a long time. Though he was glad that the haircut had passed inspection, he still felt uneasy without the mane which had once swaddled him; the hair and the beard had been more than decoration-- they'd become an integral part of Joe's persona over the years.
The manager of Burger World hovered before him
