A little ball of mercury

I washed the thermometer yesterday, the one you use to measure body temperature.
I had just used it to take Tom's (my nine-year-old son) temperature.  I was sure he was coming down with something because he didn't get excited at the prospect of a game of cricket when his friend called by.

This was not normal.  You only had to say the word, and he'd stop whatever he was doing and mock a quick swing of the pretend bat that he always kept handy, to send the pretend ball over the pretend fence for six.

Anyway, he didn't have a temperature - only a bout of weariness, which he overcame by playing cricket all afternoon with his friend.

Meanwhile, the thermometer lay on the kitchen bench, waiting to be processed.  It was one of many items:  the comb, music theory homework, note from cub group, insect spray . . . I couldn't put it back in its container until I had cleaned it.  I usually soak it in disinfectant, but that was in the bathroom, at the other end of the house, and the thermometer was in the kitchen.  So, I decided to rinse it in hot water . . . that would kill the germs.

I expect it did, but it also broke the thermometer.  The end snapped off.  I was about to throw it out when Tom asked: 'Is there any mercury left in it?'  There was, and he emptied it onto the kitchen bench.

It huddled in a round silver ball, reflecting the room around it.  Tom pushed  it, and it skated away, then stopped.  He stabbed the middle of the ball, and it divided into two balls.  He pushed one towards the other, and they collided,  gobbled each other up, and became a single silver globule.

Tom stabbed the ball again, this time more violently, and it scattered into six tiny silver balls.  He lined them up, and bowled them at the others, one by one.  They gobbled each other up - 'Like Pacman!' - he shrieked in delight, and stabbed the globule again.

Lovingly, he imprisoned his mercury ball in a small bottle, and left it - where else? - on the kitchen bench.  Safely under my eye, he was confident his little mercury ball would not run away while he was out.

And there it sits, a round silver eye, following my every movement.  Sometimes I give it a little run around the side of the bottle, and sometimes I shake it, and it falls to pieces, just like I would if you shook me.  The little silver balls lie on the bottom of the bottle, waiting . . . the tension is unbearable . . . to be reunited.

It's too cruel.  I can't leave them in pieces like that.  I jiggle the bottle, and they tumble together again.