Page 41 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

were everywhere, everywhere—I was a little dizzy. I shut my eyes, wanting to
fall asleep.
The brothers lowered their voices. They weren’t fighting, but seemed to be

settling accounts. I was feeling awful. Was I the one who was going to die after
all? My mouth and throat began swelling. My tongue changed into a large
immovable stone. “Three times five is fifteen,” the younger brother said. “Yes,
subtract fifteen,” the older brother answered. He went on, “How many days do
you think he has lived in our home?” The younger brother mumbled as he
calculated. Were they calculating my age or when I would die? All of a sudden, I
realized that I couldn’t roll my eyes. My gaze was fixed on the wall in front of
me. A red scorpion on that wall crawled slowly toward me. Was he an assassin?
I had no idea, because my vision was blurring. The scorpion grew bigger and
bigger, and more and more frightening. Next, something stung my nose, and I
blacked out.
After I came to, the first thing I heard them say was: “Ricky has thirty days
left.” My heart sank, and everything went black before my eyes, but I relaxed

again right away. I felt comfortable from head to foot, and the swelling had
subsided. I looked again. The one who had died wasn’t I, but the red scorpion—
it had flattened out and was stuck to the ground. Life had faded from its body.
The older brother picked it up with tongs and threw it into the garbage.
They went out. The house was quiet, and I squatted there remembering the
eye and the long thing that I had just swallowed down. All of a sudden, without
turning my head, I saw a house mouse behind me. How strange this was: I was
seeing with my back. There was an eye in my back! Was it that eye? It must be!
On alert, the house mouse had emerged from the hole. After making sure no
people were at home, he climbed up to the stove and ate all my food. The house
mouse simply ignored me and swaggered back to the hole. Luckily, I didn’t feel
hungry. I still felt quite nauseous. They had said I still had “thirty days.” What
did that mean? I had heard the saying that one day was equal to a year. So did
thirty days mean thirty years? I had no idea. I was frantic: Was a fatal event
about to occur? I looked into the garbage can and was stunned! The scorpion not
only hadn’t died, its body was inflating: it was four or five times as big as it used

to be. It stood up and clawed its way up the edge of the can. It was going to
come out! I immediately dashed across, opened the door, and ran outside. I
certainly didn’t intend to be stung by him a second time!
I had hardly turned into the street when I ran into the two brothers. The older
one grabbed me by the ear and said, “Ricky has come out, and so he has one
fewer day.” They ordered me to go home. I walked in front. Behind me, they
were slapping each other. When I reached the door, I turned around and saw
them clutching each other by the chest and squatting on the ground without