The scissors

The scissors gleamed on the bedside table, their tapering blades reflecting the dim light.

“Where is my bed jacket? You've taken away my bed jacket again.” The old woman's voice was creaky, petulant as a child's.

“I put it away because I thought you were asleep.” The daughter turned her back to the scissors and went to open the curtains. The musty smell of old body was stifling.

“What are you doing? Don't open the window! The cold will kill me!” The old, querulous voice grated across the daughter's nerves.

“Just a few minutes. The fresh air will do you good. Here, put on the bed jacket.”

The old woman clenched the hot pink wool with arthritic fingers and her face pulled into a cranky scowl. “You know I can't get it on by myself.”

The daughter held out the jacket. The mother's knotted hands seemed to develop another set of fingers as she struggled into the loosely knit jacket. The daughter, bending over to help, bumped her hip on the corner of the bedside table. The scissors rattled faintly across the marble. The daughter rubbed her hip, reflecting that she would develop a bruise there. She bruised so easlily these days. And her swollen feet gave her hell as she walked back to the window. The mother's nose poked like an accusing finger out of the pink wool as she gathered it tightly around her.

“There is a draft. I can clearly feel it. I'm going to get a cold!”

“Mother, the window hasn't been open for more than a minute.”

“I'm going to freeze.” The mother's black bird-eyes glinted malevolently. “Is that what you're trying to do? Freeze me to death?”

With a sight the daughter closed the window again. As she passed the bedside table the glint on the scissors seemed to hold the same malevolence as her mother's eyes moments before.

“I am thirsty! I need a herbal tea. The cold is giving me a sore throat.”

The mother was waiting like a vulture for some opening that would allow her to swoop down and rip into flesh. The daughter kept herself with difficulty from answering the accusation and swallowed the bile in her throat. She didn't have the strength for an acrimonious and emotionally exhausting showdown with her mother. Encountering the challenging eyes in the bed she just blinked owlishly, an expression that had always annoyed her mother, then walked on sore feet downstairs to prepare the herbal tea. While she waited she rested her sore feet on a small stool.

“What took you so long?” The mother glared at her as the daughter walked to the bedside table. The scissors grinned at her. She put the big hand on them to push them aside. Under her palm she could feel their cold smoothness, the wickedly sharp points. Tea slopped from the cup into the saucer. The big hand slowly closed around the terrible blades as if to shield them from her view.

“You're such a clumsy creature. Always were. Why did God punish me with such an inadequate offspring?” The mother's voice vibrated with the resentment of the incapacitated for the able. The daughter held cup and saucer out to her mother. In the other hand the scissors' points slowly began to slip from the confines of the fist.

“One of these days your clumsiness will cause you to fall and break your neck. And what will become of me, then?” The claw-like fingers curled around the cup, the beady eyes peering through the rising, curling vapour.

“Do you hear me?”

There was a soft thump as the scissors fell into the drawer and a silken purr as it shut out their gleaming points from sight. The daughter smiled angelically.

“Yes mother, I do hear you.”