#From One Line 351
#FromOneLine is a Twitter/X based writing exercise which invites participants to submit a piece of prose or poetry, stemming from a single line prompt which must be used as the first line:
It was almost sharp enough. A few more passes against the leather strop and the edge was ready - invisibly sharp. Malcolm tested it across the pad of his thumb. It whispered its keen efficiency to his expert ear.
Mr Gabitas rested his eyes as he leaned back in the chair and gave himself up to the care of his barber. His thumbs twitched upwards under the cotton cover that Malcolm had laid across him in preparation for the shave. Mr Gabitas always came at 8.15am on a Tuesday and Thursday. His beard growth was only light and his skin was sensitive to too much soap so he restricted to twice a week, the pleasure of this particular indulgence. He considered the art of the wet shave a dying one, and he felt it his duty, as a man of some means, to grant opportunities to practise to the artisans who continued to wield the cutthroat razor.
Mr Gabitas had visited Lorenzo's for many years, and despite the hiatus caused by the death of Lorenzo himself, he continued to patronise the establishment purely for the reason stated above.
Malcolm, long apprenticed to Lorenzo, had stepped unpretentiously into the role of manager at the older man's demise, and now maintained the business for the most part along the same lines as his predecessor, with only the minimal of changes: coffee was offered to clients now as they arrived; nasal waxing had been added to the menu of services.
'I'll be using a newly-formulated soap this morning, Mr Gabitas, if you are agreeable. It has been specifically created for our gentlemen with the more delicate skin.' Malcolm was already whisking the badger hair brush into the lathering compound. An aroma of cedar wood and lavender filled the air.
'Whatever you think best, Malcolm.' Mr Gabitas, his eyes still closed, breathed in deeply through his nose and displayed only the most infinitesimal twitch as the rich lather was brushed onto his skin.
'It lubricates without stripping the skin of its natural oils, sir. Gives a smoother shave and leaves a pleasant aroma to the epidermis which I think you will appreciate.'
'Absolutely, Malcolm, absolutely.' Mr Gabitas felt less inclined to talk this morning, preoccupied as he was with the image of the new serving maid at The Grapes who had made the previous evening unusually jovial.
Malcolm laid the razor against the man's cheek just by his right ear. He always started at this point, working with small deft strokes using just the tip of the blade to deal with the small eruptions of stubble. From there he worked his way down the cheeks, worked across the upper lip, down to the chin and finally the neck area.
It was as he brought the blade to the elbow of the jaw below the left ear and began the first gentle upward stroke that an unfortunate young man on a motorcycle out in the street came into collision, initially with a motor car proceeding towards the town centre, then subsequently with the plate glass window behind which Malcolm and Mr Gabitas were now situated.
It was an involuntary movement of Malcolm's hand, brought about by this sudden occurrence, combined with the extreme lubricity of the newly-formulated lather that resulted in the blade in Malcolm's hand living up to its name and opening a wide gash in the delicate, if somewhat wrinkled skin of Mr Gabitas' neck.
Mr Gabitas was more startled by the shattering of the glass and the subsequent furore in the street, than anything that had befallen his own person, and it was some moments before he noticed that the warm, sticky liquid running down his neck and inside his shirt was not in fact an abundance of lather, but was of rather greater significance to his continued well-being.
Malcolm noticed at about the same moment.
'Oh! Mr Gabitas! I'm so sorry!'
'Not to worry, old boy, not to ....' but his next words were lost in the indistinct gurgling and spluttering that was emanating from h
is opened throat.