Most Almighty Beard Man,
We would like to commend you on your efforts at making NUIG a better, beardier place to be. Although unable to grow beards ourselves, due to our dysfunctional facial follicles and lack of testosterone, we are avid beard activists who wish to encourage the male species to be more comfortable and warm in their natural bearded state.
Your column has changed our lives and the lives of the many other beard enthusiasts in hiding around campus. Every fortnight, I (one of the two writing to you) channel your Holy Beardiness into a dramatic reading of the Word of the Beard. I like to think that you’d enjoy these readings as a tribute to the Beard; the ever-growing and enraptured audience of the Hub definitely do in any case.
Our devotion to Your Beardiness is unparalleled. We spread the Word of the Beard as you dictate it to us every fortnight. We encourage all men (and the occasional blessed woman) to embrace their glorious facial hair, in accordance with your teachings.
We are writing to you then, in the throes of our grief, to ask you, Most Holy Bearded Man…
WHY?
Why when we have done you no wrong, do you deny us the Beard in this most cold wintery month of November? You say that this is a protest against the wrongful cultivation of beards in relation to charity. Yet I do not believe you understand the true ramifications of your actions. How can you justify unleashing this mayhem? Without the Guardian Beard to guide and light us on our path, who is to say what is right and what is wrong? We cannot describe our despair upon reading your intentions. I was momentarily incapacitated as I attempted to understand the Divine Intent of your Beardiness, yet nothing seemed to make my imminent task of delivering this most heartbreaking news to your followers any easier. That the hair would be taken from us is one thing… But the Beard?
THE BEARD?
What should we call you now Almighty Beardiness? Your Holy Baldiness? Baldilocks? Dr.Evil? Sir Patrick Stewart? Humpty Dumpty? Baldy Spears? Baldemort?
As sudden as the influence of the Beard came into our lives, it left us. And now we are as barren as the face that once bore such glory. We await, (like your face) for the return of the warmth and security once provided by the Beard to come to us once more.
So we are writing to urge you, Our Beardiness, to reconsider. Or if you have already carried out this heinous crime, to assure you that our support is unwavering. We understand the need for sacrifice. We understand that this is a test of our true devotion, to weed us out from those wispy haired atrocities that attempt the sin that is Movember….
We will await the second coming of the beard.
This is the Word of the Beard
Thanks be to Beard.
Yours in Beardiness,
The Beardloved
Response from The Bearded One
Beardloved,
I took council over the last few days to gather my thoughts and coax my beard back from the shadows. Rest assured, I would be remiss in my duties as a bearded pariah to have left this mail go unanswered any longer, I sought council with Elves, the Starks of Winterfell, The Lord Commander, Gandalf, Grizzly Adams, Jesus Christ and obviously with old photographs of myself.
I was utterly entranced by your glowing admiration for the noble work I have been carrying out on campus over the past few months. Your words were not lost on me, they were kind and admonished me for having scant regard for the doom the world would befall if I strayed too far from the righteous path I had set myself upon.
I’ve felt like Frodo deep in Mordor, I may stray, but alas, we all know I only have one path. Plus, Frodo’s prepubescence was bothersome, a beard would have allowed him to kill the Balrog, smite Smeagol with consummate ease and annihilate those pesky Nazgul. But that is another story and another rant.
Your words resonated with something deep, innate and eternal within me and to a large extent, the universe beyond. They echoed into the pantheons of times yet to come and those that have seen the tides of transience ebb away, abandoning them to the ignominy of forgetfulness.
I have not abandoned you, nor the other disciples of the beard. I merely laid down a gauntlet for you, my avid fans need to step up too. I am not the Christ-like figure you portray me as. I am a simple man, with simple tastes.
My beard has reached it’s Stalingrad moment; to tell the truth we’ve crossed the proverbial Rubicon if you will… My beard is nearly three weeks old, I’ve afforded it new boundaries with the kind of expansionism not witnessed since 1940’s Europe. It will be a better beard for it; I firmly believe that, you must too.
I thank you wholeheartedly for you fitting homage and ode to the beard I will always be. I am not just a beard, but in a sense the beard and I will always be one.
Hair grows and it knows. Loyalty, pride, passion and fashion are all synonymous with what I have crafted on my face. You must believe in yourself now, because beyond beards all we are and have is belief.
I believe. You should too.
Fondest festive follicle regards,
Your Leader,
John