This thing lying on the desk is now being seen by my eyes. I could
pick it up at this moment. I could cut out a human figure with it. I might
even cut off all my hair. Though it's understood that murder is out of
the question.

Yet this thing also keeps getting rustier, blunter, and older. It's still
useful but it'll be thrown away before long. Although I have no way
of knowing whether it's made of ore from Chile or whether Krupp's
fingers have touched it, it's not hard to imagine that it will finally return
to its indeterminate destiny, moving away from its human formality
back to its original state. this thing here on the desk is at this moment
talking about such a time, not to anyone in particular but coldly, silently,
as if it were not doing that. People manufactured this for practical
purposes and yet it has inevitably come to exist here in this way before
and apart from any practical purpose it might have. It's something which
could be variously named - not just 'scissors.' It already has countless
other names. Habit alone keeps me from using the other names. Or is
it out of self-defence?

Because this thing, existing like this, has the power to extract words
from me so that I go on being unreeled in this string of words and am
always on the dangerous verge of being reduced to a far more thinner
and feebler existence than that of the scissors.

(Translated by William I. Elliott and Kazao Kawamura)