The Fellowship of the Bald

-- Hello, please meet a very bald Lego story

Note: I wrote this micro story for a contest to win a Lego set that costs the same as a PS5. The prompt was to come up with a Fellowship of Lego characters. And so I present to you, The Fellowship of the Bald.

R2-D2 had suffered long enough without hair. In the year 21749 he began a galactic journey in search of the one thing that would finally bring him respect – luscious locks. Planet after planet proved useless until his journey carried him to the home of the Wookies. Of all creatures, surely they knew a thing or two about hair production. It took some finagling but finally the terms came together: in exchange for teaching the Wookies how to rollerblade, R2-D2 would be given a vial of their patented hair growth formula. R2 drank and R2 became beautiful. C3PO’s reign as king of the bars was coming to an end.

Over the years other baldies flocked to R2. How had he managed to overcome the great disgrace of baldness? Could he rescue them from the shame of hairless heads? R2 couldn’t take them to the Wookies; they had gone extinct in the wake of Covid-114.

Still, his followers grew. They each coped with baldness in their own way. They each believed R2 could lead them to the promised land.

There was Morris Carlson – a normal fellow who dressed up in a shoddy Spiderman suit to hide his bare dome. He disappointed everyone he met – “You’re not the real Spiderman?!?" -- but better to disappoint them by not being a superhero than by being bald, he reasoned.

 

There was Bill, the overcompensator. Sure, he couldn’t grow hair where it mattered but so help him his beard, mustache, and eyebrows would be as grandiose as anyones.

 

There was Skeletina, a corpse whose hair had faded away over the years of decomposition. She would never have a chance at running for graveyard president unless her hair grew back.



There was Eliza, the turtle. She dreamed of being as furry and cute as her squirrel peers.

 

There was Rey, who shaved her head after losing a bet to a gang of porgs. It never grew back. She became a magician – easy money when you have the force – with the hopes that capes and top hats would distract folks from her barren skull.

 

There was Marley “Toupee” Johnson whose fake hair looked pretty swell, minus the fact that it didn’t match his graying beard. Carrying a comb everywhere he went did little to convince people of his rug’s authenticity.

 

There was Stormtrooper Barry who personally didn’t care much for the practices of the Empire but what other jobs let him hide his bald condition all day?

 

Finally there was Lloyd, who tried his best to act cool despite being a bald. “Appearance is 90% confidence,” he was fond of saying. (Narrator: that was a lie)

Collectively, with R2-D2 as their fearless leader, this group travelled the lands in search of their personal holy grail. If R2 could do it once, surely he could find hair again, this time for his followers. Their hair may have died but their spirits never would.

Thus was born the Fellowship of the Bald.