The Nail Clippers

The nail clippers were born from an unlikely pair.  His mother was a silver earring and his father was a stapler. The stapler was a bulky mass of danger just waiting to spit metal at the first person who denied him while his mother was a delicate sliver of silver sculpture that hung gracefully off a rich earlobe.

From the very beginning the nail clippers felt different. He was just handsome enough to get into the bathroom mirror cabinet, but just bulky enough to sit on the edge of the shelf. He watched as all the out of reach pieces of jewelry would scoot away from him nervously. They took one look at his piercing mouth and scattered.

“You’re too old to be of any value anymore anyway,” the nail clippers snapped against an antique ring’s very core. Her diamond shuttered from his words.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” She shouted back, but her words were lost in a swirl of panic. The nail clippers could do that to anyone. In his late years he had begun to grow sharper with time and pretty soon he would be as slick as the razor that sat on edge.

The nail clippers would never be too old to be of any value. Once a week, the woman of the house would hold him up to her scraggly, but finely polished finger nails for him to work on. It was the one time when his bite was truly founded. With a brutal kiss, the nail clippers held onto the polished nail, feeling its elegance before completely disregarding it. He was never much for hanging on to what wasn’t useful.

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