Page 43 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

whiteness in front of me, I smelled the wind on the grasslands and a hint of

animal skins. When that house mouse woke me up, I was throwing myself into
the embrace of what I thought was Grandpa’s shadow. The house mouse bit me
in the butt, almost drawing blood. His eyes shone: his objective was clear. His
eyes differed from those of our clan. Why had he come here? To eat my food,
that’s why. When he saw no food on the stove, he bit me. This house mouse was
unusual. He actually thought I was his food and that he could take a bite
whenever he wanted to. I glared at him, and he glared at me. He wasn’t one bit
afraid of me. When he saw that I was awake, he knew he couldn’t eat me, and so
—enraged—he jumped down to the floor. Though he patrolled once more
around the house, he still found nothing to eat. Then he retreated unwillingly
into his hole. I started thinking about this house mouse. He had been living in
this house from the very beginning. Was he a mutation of my species? Of course
he was. I could tell that just by looking at the shape of his eyes, though his
expression was different. Probably he had shrunk to such a small size because of
the changed circumstances. My clan and my ancestors had never eaten our
compatriots, yet he didn’t observe this taboo. He considered me his food. Sure, I

guess he didn’t consider me his compatriot, but I was several times bigger than
he was. Why wasn’t he even a little afraid of me? See? He was popping his head
out of that hole again. I was alarmed at the way he looked, because he clearly
thought of me as lunch. I’d have to be more careful from now on when I slept. I
still didn’t understand one thing: In all these years, why hadn’t he ever attacked
me? Was this change related to the present attack on the red scorpion? Was he
acting unscrupulously because the master had said I had only thirty days left?
In order to evade the house mouse’s gaze, I came down from the stove and
went outside. Why was it so quiet outside? Had all the people left? I looked
back: the house mouse had followed me out. Why did he have to follow me?
Where had the two brothers gone? I mustn’t doze off, because this guy was right
behind me. I went to the home across the street, pressed my ear against the door,
and listened. I heard someone’s ragged breathing inside. The door wasn’t locked.

I pushed it open and saw a fat woman with asthma on the bed. Since I had
opened the door, the house mouse scurried in, too. He climbed up on the big,
carved bed and crawled over to the woman. He bit an artery on her neck and
sucked the blood. The woman gradually began breathing more easily, and,
looking comfortable, she closed her eyes. The house mouse’s stomach was
swelling, and when he slid down from the bed, he could hardly walk. He
swaggered slowly over to the wall, where there was a hole much smaller than he
was. He struggled hard to squeeze in and finally succeeded. He shrieked because
he was being pressed from both sides. This was good for me—finally, I broke
away from him. I turned around and went back to my home, intending to get a