“Don’t shave me off. Please. I want to live.”

Steve slowly set down the electric clippers.

The voice was coming, distinctly, from his beard.

“Am I going crazy?” Steve said.

“Nope. I’m talking to you.”

“How can you be talking to me? You’re a beard.”

“I don’t know. I just am.”

“How is this possible?”

“I really have no idea.”

“Well,” Steve said, “I have been studying an awful lot.”

“Maybe,” the beard said. “You’ll just have to take my word for it. I’m alive. I don’t know how or why. The thing is, I might be able to help you with certain things.

As long as you don’t shave me off.”