“Death is so loud!” The pigeons puff and shuffle; Spiro pulls the stitch through awkwardly, left-handed. “Maybe for other people it’s quiet. You’d want it to be. In bed. When you’re old.” He jerks out a smile.

The patch is almost done. He bites off the thread and blows on it, waiting for the superglue to dry.

“No,” he says, “for me it’s all roars and bangs and whistles. Bullets and trucks, hot fires and mudslides. Showoff!”

The pigeons scatter. Spiro laughs and hauls his ragdoll body up, testing his right arm on the wall. It only leaks a little.