By Holden Arquilevich

My room was finally empty. Every room seems so much larger with nothing in it. But there was something left. Something I had missed on purpose.

The light caught it where it lay in the corner, nestling in the shag carpet. It was a small Exacto knife. The kind an artist uses.

I lifted it up to eye level. I rotated it, catching the light on the flat, shiny blade, winking at me in mesmerizing flickers. I was in the backyard with my brother again.

There was a dead lizard on the sun-bleached concrete in front of the garage. A blue belly. Its extremities were already shriveling in the heat.

“You got the last one,” I whined, “It’s my turn!” I was in elementary school. Him, a year or so older.

“Fine,” he said with exasperation. “Just remember, I get the next one then!”

I smiled to myself and crouched over the little leathery body. I flicked it onto its back, exposing those soft, iridescent scales. I had caught live blue bellies, and I knew how soft that skin was under the thumb. This one I only touched with the Exacto. I knew not to touch dead things.

I cut it with a vertical incision from neck to hips. I spread it open and marveled at the multicolored landscape within. The deep crimsons and maroons were visceral and familiar. But the white, blobulous bags, the veins of yellow rope, these were the things that fascinated me. That I burst open with the knife point and watched the juices run out. That I cut and disentangled, speculating on what the tiny organs did when they worked. I breathed in the subtle whiff of lizard blood. I felt the sun burn my neck unforgivingly as I took my time exploring the little world inside.

My brother and I would fight over whose turn it was every single time, without fail. Even when we knew it wasn’t our turn. Just for the chance to go again.

The light faded from the knife’s blade. I went downstairs. My brother was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal and reading the back of the box with a bored expression.

“All done?” he asked between mouthfuls.

“Yup,” I said. “I’ll have to leave early tomorrow. I’ll try not to wake you.”

He grunted. We had lived together since we finished undergrad. He had become assistant manager at a retail store that sold office supplies. I was going to med school in the morning.

“Sounds good. You wanna do anything special tonight? Celebrate that we’ll have a big shot surgeon in the family soon?”

“Sure. What you got in mind?”

He grinned devilishly, a bit of milk leaking between his teeth.

“Well…O’Donovan is working the graveyard shift tonight.”

We had known O’Donovan for a long time. We went to the same kindergarten. He worked at the local hospital. In the morgue.

“You know I don’t do that anymore,” I murmured.

“Yeah?” he said, abandoning his cereal box and mashing up his last bite like it was an inconvenience. “You think you can stop just like that, huh? Or do you think you can just do it the ‘right’ way from now on? The way that no one will question?”

“You know what? Forget it. I’m just going to have a nice quiet night.”

He laughed. The cruel laugh reserved for siblings.

“What’s that you got in your hand, huh?”

I looked down. I forgot I still had it. My knuckles were white.

“C’mon,” he said. “I just got a bonus. Plenty for ole’ Donny to give us an hour.”

I looked down at the knife, and the hand holding it. I smelled cold blood and hot, dusty concrete. I rotated the knife in my hand a few times, catching the light. I saw only glittering blue.

“You buying?” I asked.

He grinned again.

“Consider this your going-away present.”