The mummy's accomplice

My blind patient brings her 5 year old daughter to the session. She has no one to watch the child today.

The little girl complains that she is cold, and I lend her my extra-large pink pashmina. Her eyes light up.

While I listen to her mother, the kid proceeds to wrap herself in the shawl. It covers her head to toe. She wriggles around in it, adjusts it, and pretends to sleep. She then takes it off and wraps it around her head like a turban. She models it for me, moving her head this way and that and smiling like Carmen Miranda.

The mother talks on.

The girl takes the pashmina and bundles it up then holds it like a baby. She silently kisses it, then voila! unwraps it and tries to wave it like a flag. It's too long. She gives up and re-wraps herself in it, this time leaving an inch of room for her eyes to peek out. She looks around the room, then sticks her tongue out within the material. She pulls the pashmina off her face and pulls fuzz from her tongue with her fingers, then re-wraps herself, mummy style.

The mother stops talking: "What are you doing?"

"Nuttin..."

From a slit in the wrapping, the cashmere mummy looks in my direction, then winks.