Soft-shoed and stepping down a cracked and bruised concrete walk, the kid tread quickly, criss-crossing and quick-stepping as shoelaces beat a crooked tempo to the boy’s swaying walk. His hands gasped for balance as his arms strained at his shoulders, keeping his unmarred and new body perched precariously upon his dancing legs. His shoes, worn and beaten and too old for a young pair’s job, slipped on gravel and the slightest slopes, bucking the boy like a horse with no morals. But the kid was a kid and didn’t know what happened when he fell further than his knees, so he wasn’t afraid of the sting of peroxide and cotton swabs on the cuts and gashes across his freckled cheeks. He ran and walked and jumped and leapt, almost dying but just keeping on living, and he spat on the ground when his tongue seemed too big for his mouth.