Page 20 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

was a coward’s way. I knew, however, that just one of these mushrooms could

kill a person. So he was determined to kill me, and I fled. This had happened in
the afternoon. Now I sat in this hell awaiting fate’s verdict. In my mind, a voice
kept asking, What in the world happened? I didn’t know. Really didn’t know.
Everything was baffling. A person passed by. Although I couldn’t see him, I
could sense his weight as he stepped in the mud. He stopped next to me and said,
“After a house is built, one doesn’t have to live there.” This man was annoying,
and I got up without a sound and moved away from him. It never occurred to me
that the moment I moved, he would push down on my back. He was strong. All I
could do was lie quietly on the ground. Words flashed through my mind: People,
uh. People need to know themselves. But I wasn’t a person. I couldn’t speak.
He pushed me against the ground, but then his attention wandered and he let
go. Naturally, I slipped away at once. This place seemed to be a flat area packed
with little animals that were excavating. I kept bumping into them in the dark. I
knew they were small, but I had no idea what kind of animals they were. One of
them was stuck halfway down in the hole he was digging. He screamed shrilly. I
bent over and gripped one of his legs and mustered all my strength to drag him

out. It didn’t occur to me that he would attack me insanely. Still, since I was
several times larger than he was, I quickly overwhelmed him. I pounded his head
against the ground more than a dozen times. I kept this up and then finally left
him for dead. I was afraid of running into those people again, so I wanted to hide
or join the ranks of the excavators. When I tried approaching the little animals,
they were hostile, as if telling me this was no place for me. They pushed me hard
and berated me mercilessly. I had nowhere to go. Every time I thought of
squatting and resting for a while, some guy would come over, lay claim to my
spot, and push me away. Why did they overreact to me? Frightened, I looked up
at that spot where the light came in. Listening closely, I could still hear the cur’s
barking. Maybe I should climb up and go back there. He hadn’t bitten me, so
how could I have imagined that he would bite me to death? Now I regretted
having acted so precipitately. Before giving it any thought, I had simply fallen

into a place where I didn’t belong. I had spent so many peaceful nights on
people’s stoves, and sure, maybe I was a little nosy, but this couldn’t have been
why I was kicked out. And probably the poisonous mushrooms were meant only
to scare me: he knew I was cautious and wouldn’t just blindly eat whatever was
placed before me. Alas, there was no point in saying all this now.
Eventually I was surrounded. These little things that were as rigid as iron
collided with me time and again. They rammed my stomach, my face, and my
feet. I kept screaming hysterically. The more I screamed, the harder they hit me.
I nearly fainted from the pain. Then that person arrived, and the little animals
hid. He kicked my stomach and said, “He isn’t fit to live in this wilderness.”