“Itch to Cut” by Angela Sawyer—Our March 2026 Gold Medal Winner

Angela Sawyer is our first place winner from the contest posted in our March 2026 issue and her story will be published in the June 2026 edition. Congratulations, Angela!

What the judges had to say:

“I love the quiet obsession of this story... The details are rich, physical, sensual. No cliches. I felt you were in control of the story throughout rather than reaching for punchlines and epiphanies.”

“The first paragraph of this story did a great job of capturing my interest and setting up the premise, as well as providing insight into the narrator’s mind as a barber...”

“You have managed to unlock a new fear I had never considered before. Good job.”

Meet Angela

With a motto of 'everyone has a story to tell', Angela spends their days writing and exploring how narratives impact us (when they're not spending time with their dog).

Itch to Cut

an excerpt of Angela’s winning story

Hair can be brittle or smooth, curled or straight, but each strand cuts the same. The feeling of the scissors breaking through the last bit of resistance that hair puts up is soothing to me. And while the clients tend to endlessly drabble on during their appointments, if I listen closely I can hear the slice. It creates a song—each one unique to the individual in the chair but ending with the same ring of a bell as the door closes behind them. It’s hypnotic, really, addicting.

This client, Evan, had not said a word beside his request to cut everything off. It was his first time getting a short cut and he insisted on leaving it all behind. The long, black, and thick strands felt like a fine fabric under my fingers. It was truly a shame for him to part with it. A tragedy that makes me itch.

I stop once the hair had gone from down his back to around his ears. “How is this?”

He blinks and takes in the image in the mirror. The golden light of the shop paints his thin features in a darker light, and the black leather of the barber chair manages to dwarf him more than his already fragile looking body would normally.

“Could we go shorter?”

“Anymore and we might as well shave it.”

He lets out a small gasp of air—something akin to a laugh. “That…that sounds wonderful…”

I tighten my grip around the metal of my scissor’s handle. It had long since turned warm in my palms, making the calming sensation uncomfortable. I set them down on the dark oaken desk that makes up my workstation. “Then we’ll need to switch to the sink.”

Evan eagerly shifts over. As he walks, some of the tufts of hairs get free of the rest and run towards the edges of the room. I smile as a few manage to make a home in the shadows of my desk. They nestle in, beside Dan’s curls from last month, where they will be safe from the broom.

I’ve ensured that the shop is filled with these little bits of history: Dan’s lost curls from when he was moving to a new city, a few snippets of Amy’s first cut beneath the chair, a strand of Emma’s grey that hadn’t been re-made brown twisted in the corner, and now Evan’s.

The rest of the strands had, unfortunately, been swept into a bag. A dirty shop creates a bad reputation, so the manager has made it clear that there shouldn’t be a hint of the last person when the next client comes to take the chair. But, with the remnants of every other client’s cuts in the same bag, the strands are lost—consumed—- as soon as they touch the others.

But not those ones.

And certainly not the ones I’ve taken home.

…

to read the rest of the story, order your copy of the June 2026 issue.