Imaginary Life

They were scattered all around that squalid, filthy place, their feathered corpses splayed or huddled in a thousand different attitudes of inglorious decease.

Or so it seemed to Duffy, anyway. In fact, there probably weren't more than a dozen of the scruffy little wretches littering the plant at any given time. But they were there, all right; I'll grant that much. I saw them too, and so, I'm sure, did everybody else. You never knew when you might round a pillar or a post and nearly stumble on one of the fat little lumps or, in some cases, cross paths with one that was still hobbling along in an agonized quest for relative privacy, a place to die in peace. One morning I opened the door to the john, and there was one of them lying on the floor by the trash can. It appeared to have nosed its way into the corner between the trash can and the block wall-as far removed from the madness of life as it could get under the circumstances. Then it had tucked its beak down into its breast and expired. I don't know how the hell it got inside the john.