*

The bird died unnaturally. Susi made a nice slingshot. The field provided the natural materials - the twig, the stone. I produced a rubber band from my wrist. The tiny bird fell at our feet with a sound muffled by the sticky heat of the siesta. The bird tried to stand up, stumbled. Tried to fly, but to no avail. We bandaged his wing and kept vigil by his bedside. We brought him water from the good tank - the one collecting rainwater - and maize from the henhouse that we arduously broke into little bite-size pieces. He did not try the corn. When he died, we buried him by the stony path. Susi gathered wild flowers while I carefully detached the rubber band from the stick. We walked away from the sun. And from the twig marker casually announcing the first of the things killed along the way.

*

La casa de Lala was somber and grim and silent. I had to walk sliding on wool pads - patines - to deafen my steps. Someone was eternally ill in one room or another. I follow her to the patio’s door that opens to the sky. I leave the patines behind and jump to the gray concrete yard. Light filters through the grapevine. We go around the plants on a floor almost completely covered by pots, trying to avoid them, to get to the bottom of the stairs. We sit on the steps to eat grapes. My parents say that I used to eat just the skin of Lala’s grapes, and spit the pulp. While I cut and glue pieces of mushy concrete to make stairways I compulsively start to eat my own grapes, and spit their skins. On the soft concrete that dampens the sound and denies all their lies.