Page 22 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

little safer. Since falling down here, I had never felt safe. Although digging had
lured me, I really didn’t want to go any deeper. I wasn’t an underground animal.
It wasn’t bad at all to squat in this hole with this thing that was sound asleep.
It was much better than staying out there being pushed and bumped back and
forth. I looked up and saw the light again. That place seemed to have a door. The

door opened, then closed. The hazy beam of light changed subtly. Deep down, I
felt homesick. Lying on the clean stoves had been so comfortable, and never-
ending adventure had filled the nights . . . Had the slums thrown me out? But
wasn’t this also part of the slums? Those people just now—weren’t they in direct
contact with the ones above? Just then a terrible odor interrupted me: the thing
was farting! This was no ordinary odor—the fumes gave me a splitting
headache. Utterly unnerved, I jumped out of the hole. I wished I could kill this
thing for giving off such a toxic odor.
He woke up. Fluttering his bizarre wings, he flew about two meters into the
air. The fumes dissipated. I wanted to get away, but I either stepped on
someone’s foot or was prodded hard by another one: they wouldn’t let me leave.
That thing stopped for a while in midair and then fell into the hole with a thump.
Anyhow, he had finished farting and seemed to have resumed sleeping.
“Someone is really restless and can take wing in his sleep,” one person said at
the side. This person fanned himself—and washed his feet in the wooden basin,
just as my old master usually did in the past. “This is a flying squirrel.

Sometimes it digs underground. Sometimes it flies. But it doesn’t fly more than
three meters high, that’s all,” the person said while swooshing the foot-washing
water. This man’s actions made me suspicious: What kind of place was this,
anyway? Were there houses nearby? Pushed and squeezed by the little animals,
I’d better jump back into my earthen hole. I felt a little drowsy and lay prone to
rest on the flying squirrel’s back. Touching those thin but rigid wings, I
wondered whether I would dream with him in midair if he flew again. I fell
asleep. Before long, I heard my old master call me, “Rat! Hey, Rat! Fly up here
fast! Do you see me?” I looked up and saw him in the light far away. I had no
wings. How could he ask me to fly? I wasn’t yet wide awake when the flying
squirrel beside me carried me up to midair. I lay prone on his back, feeling I had
ascended to the edge of paradise. He was really strong! But we soon descended
into the hole again. The flying squirrel had never awakened: he’d been snoring

the whole time. What a lucky little thing. “Underneath the hole is another hole.
Do you dare go down?” The speaker was the man washing his feet in the
wooden basin. “Ha-ha. The world above is the world below.” His piercing voice
made me very uncomfortable.
All of a sudden, I remembered something from my childhood. Back then, I
was close friends with a little girl in the family I stayed with. She took me