SURPRISE! Thanks to KameTerra, who responded to the challenge, we have a special bonus chapter: Raphael's poem. Without further ado, here is!


POEM
By Hamato Raphael

It was a pigeon—just a damned pigeon
a "rat with wings"
taken for granted at best, and persecuted at worst

They took turns throwing it up
higher and higher
when it landed, they all fought to be first to grab it
as it jerked and fluttered feebly to avoid their grimy hands

And still there I was, hands balled into fists
ready to blow my cover, expose myself in the fading light, risk the secrecy of my existence
just to show those little assholes it ain't right to pick on another creature
even if its weak
even if it ain't nothing more than a dirty ball of feathers
even if it's as good as dead already

Even if no one would miss it when it was gone

That night, the pigeon had a different savior
a weedy looking kid in scuffed jeans and hair in his eyes
a kid that didn't look like he could be anybody's hero, even a half-dead pigeon's

But the next time the feathery football went down, I swear to god he could've been a goddamn track star
the way he sprinted and threw himself over that pathetic bundle of feathers
and I won't lie—he took a good beating
in the end, he didn't look much better than the poor bird
but the other kids figured out he wasn't gonna give up
and left him alone with his battered "prize"

Only it was too late for the pigeon

I watched him limp over to the cover of some shrubs and sit on a flat stone at the border
mud coating his jeans
a trickle of blood at his lip
cradling that bird like it was a baby
like it was his best friend
stroking it, over and over
until it took flight for the last time, leaving its crippled body behind

Then I watched that kid
that scrawny, scruffy, no-account looking kid
who looked like he'd never had no one to run to his rescue
cry as he buried a worthless dead bird in the park

How's that for poetry?