“Remember how, like, twenty years ago, it was a thing in therapy to re-enact your birth? And some people died wrapped up in carpets trying to recreate the heat and compression of trans-vaginal travel?”
I cock an eyebrow at my imaginary raccoon, whose top half has disappeared into my compost bucket. Her butt wiggles as she digs, and I can barely understand her through a mouthful of carrot peels. “Are you sure that wasn’t just something we saw on CSI?”
Critter pops her head up and squints into the darkness of my under-sink cupboard. “Nooooo… I’m pretty sure that was real. Anyhow, look at us doing that!”
“Ew! No we aren’t.”
She turns around, her eyes bulging with enthusiam. “No! We totally are! We’re squeezing through a very narrow opening of finance and time to re-appear in the world. And our faces are a little misshapen and a little bit of turd came out with us. But it’s fine. We’re fine! Look at us reborn!”
I swallow a little puke and shake off a ripple of conflicted emotion – a soft-serve swirl of shame and pride as I imagine what the midwives saw when I was pushing out my two kids.
Critter’s still holding an open-mouth smile, waiting for me to agree with her. I roll my eyes. “Goddamn it, fuzzbutt. Get over here.” I scoop her up and she nuzzles my neck with ropes of damp vegetable skin.
“We did it,” she whispers.
“We did something,” I say. And whatever it’s going to be, it’s coming your way. I recommend an apron.
Dark Little Critter 