“The patient is under, doctor,” I said, even though Teddy’s sparkly, plastic eyes were forever open. My sister wore the neighbor’s thick olive gardening gloves, and they stank of mud and plastic. In one hand, she held craft scissors. In the other, a butcher’s knife. Our parents weren’t home.
“Thank you,” she said. “Don’t you think we should begin delicately?”
I shook my head solemnly. “The cancer has gone too far. Drastic measures are necessary.”
My sister frowned, but set aside the craft scissors without argument. She took the butcher’s knife and unsentimentally cut Teddy from navel to chin, itchy tufts of cotton snowing to the floor.
Later, I would regret the game. I hadn’t understood that even though it was all pretend, Teddy would never be the same again. Sure, we could return the cotton to his belly, sinch him up tight with red thread. But he would always be a little deflated. Our sloppy stitching would always dart up his stomach. For months, he stared accusingly from the corner of my bed. You did this. You hurt me. You cut me open for fun. Sleep came sporadically, filled with nightmares. Guilt made me irritable. My relationships suffered.
Early one summer, on garbage day, I snuck into the front lawn and stuffed Teddy at the very bottom of our trash bin, beneath all the pregnant garbage bags. The truck came at noon, and I watched through the window as a stranger dumped my family’s garbage in with all the rest. I’d thought I was hidden in the curtain, but after he set our empty garbage bin back on the curb, he crooked his head up and looked me straight in the eye. I was certain we had never met before, but when the stranger smiled at me, it was familiar and private, as though to tell me that he did know me. He knew me very well indeed. Then the stranger stepped into his truck and drove away, off to deliver Teddy to the isle of the dead. I would come to regret that too.
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Kira Compton is bad at writing bios, as well as several more important things. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the USM Center for Writers, where she serves as associate editor of the Mississippi Review. Her fiction, interviews, and other scribblings can be found in The Idaho Review, The Florida Review, hex literary and others. See more at kiracompton.com.