12b.

Pablo loved admiring the black chickens as they ran around his feet in the evenings. They blended in with the black asphalt of the city streets, and the moon made their plumage glimmer like a night time lake. He felt as if he were walking on water, a steady sea of feathers extending in every direction, the occasional sharp claw pattering across his bare feet, the occasional beak caught in the skin of his calves.

He thought of rats. He thought of cockroaches skittering across sub-tropical alleyways, a clacky-clack sound like clocks, like machinery. He thought of the worst kinds of vermin, caked black and gleaming of filth, always emerging in the high-contrast portrait of night-time to break the darkness with their shine. Seas of cucarachas, seas of lao-shu.

He thought of black marbles, spilt, rolling across the carpet, of Maria's voice seeping through the walls, of the fear he felt when he knew that Maria would see the mess he had made. Of black dress shoes scraping around on the floor of a dance hall, and a young Pablo sitting cross-legged amidst the feet, too utterly afraid to stand, and too utterly trapped in the jungle of legs to be alone.

1, 2, 3,

, and with all of his strength, kicked his own leg forward, and heard one loud squawk of pain from one particularly large chicken, and his joy at seeing the trembling bird scurry about, bruised, bumping and pecking his comrades.

1, 2, 3,

, and a fine dinner he and his mother would soon enjoy.