Fiction

Boy and Scissors
by Ray Wallace

In his left hand he held a sheet of paper folded many times over. In his right, a gleaming pair of scissors. He brought the scissors up before his face, opened them, closed them, stared at the light playing along the blades, mesmerized. Beautiful, he thought. With these, I could cut through anything…

He took a stab at the air. Snip. There! Was it his imagination? Another stab. Another snip. No, it wasn’t! The air had definitely bent around the blades. He was sure of it. These wonderful scissors had nearly cut a hole through reality. Maybe with the proper flick of the wrist the world around him would part like a torn piece of tissue paper and then… What would he find? What would he see there, hiding behind this veil of normality? Images of blasted, jagged landscapes, of slavering, alien beasts danced through his head. He shivered, lowered his hand. Maybe some things were better left un-cut.

His gaze fell upon the hand holding the sheet of paper. He extended his index finger, gripped the top knuckle with the scissors’ blades. Oh, how easy it would be… A little pressure and the end of that particular digit would be launched like a tiny rocket ship, sailing away on a spray of blood. The image was there, so clear, so alluring. He started to squeeze…

“What are you doing?”

Startled, he almost went through with the tiny amputation, somehow managed to control his reaction and open the scissors, to turn around and face his little sister who had so suddenly entered the room.

“Nothing,” he said. “Go away.”

“Awww, those are Mommy’s scissors. You’re not supposed to be playing with them. I’m gonna tell!” She started backing out of the room.

“Wait!” he nearly shouted.

Miraculously, she waited.

It would take no time at all… Stand up and grab her by the arm, slice an opening in reality, push her through… So tempting. But his mother would be upset to find her little girl missing. And he so loved his mother. Besides, he had already planned for this. The brat had found him in here, his mother’s sewing room, on a few other occasions, each time resulting in a week’s grounding. Thus the folded sheet of paper.

“Watch,” he said and began to cut.

Confetti fell to the floor like the first snowstorm of winter. Within moments he was opening the paper, showing her what he’d done.

“Oooh, dollies!” she cried out. “Paper dollies!”

“Shhhh,” he urged her, holding the scissors to his lips. “They’re yours if you don’t say anything to Mommy.”

“I won’t, I promise.” She reached out with eager hands.

As soon as he she had the string of cutout figures in her grasp she darted from the room.

He had no idea if his sister would keep her promise. If not… Other plans started to take shape in his mind. The scissors presented so many possibilities. With a sigh he put them back in the drawer of the desk where his mother liked to do her sewing, pushed it closed. Then he left the room, left the house, headed toward the shed in the back yard where his father kept his lawn tools. Inside was a shovel he was sure would let him dig a hole to the center of the Earth with no trouble at all. Today seemed like a good day to find out.