Chapter One
Today was the day.
Mikael stood in front of the mirror. He practiced his breathing exercises—in, out, in, out. He stared at his reflection, Spanish ancestry colored his skin a deep golden brown while hazel eyes stared back at him beneath floppy chestnut hair that needed a cut. He wore a white t-shirt and worn jeans, going for the most casual he could. He wouldn’t admit to anyone the amount of times he had changed his outfit, nor the fact that he had brushed his teeth several times.
Not that it actually mattered. He was being silly and he knew it but there were some compulsions that could not be helped, that would not be quieted no matter how many times he tried to push them away.
With one final sigh, Mikael picked up his keys and left his little safe haven. He stepped out onto streets screaming with the sound of cars, people rushing to and from their destinations. His city was like a hive, always busy and always humming. He joined the throng and started walking.
Sometimes Mikael had dreams that the shelter would not be there on the day he finally decided to make his way to it. He would have dreams that some great catastrophe would have struck it more often than he dreamt that it existed only in his mind. Both dreams made him feel sick with guilt afterward. In truth, that guilt might even be the reason that he had finally made the venture toward it.
He made his way over to the back where he knew the kitchens were from a previous visit. The first and only time he had come here, he had spoken to an older woman with incredibly bright blue hair and an accent he couldn’t identify. He had told her he wanted to help, he wanted to give back. She had tried to place him somewhere right then and there and he had panicked, lying and saying he had to be elsewhere at that moment and had simply come through to find out what he needed to do. He felt the guilt in the pit of his stomach again as he recalled the kind expression she had given him, completely unaware that he had nowhere else to be. In hindsight, she was probably one of the reasons he had returned too – yet again, his guilty conscience.
In the kitchens were several men and women, bustling about and preparing food. The noise of pots and pans clanging could be heard among the chink of plates. It seemed as though he was right in time for the lunch rush hour.
“Hello,” a tall woman said beside him. He started, having not noticed her appearance. “Are you here to volunteer?”
He looked at her for a moment too long. She smiled but she looked worn. He wondered what from, but he knew he couldn’t ask. That wasn’t the type of thing normal people asked. There was a laugh on his opposite side that brought him back and he returned her smile with more effort than he cared to admit. He sucked in a deep breath, willing his voice to come out and his words to make sense. People were his weakness. They always had been.
“I am. I spoke to a lady before and she told me I could come through to the back whenever I wanted to help out.”
“Awesome! Well, today we’re doing a soup and bread. The soup is mostly ready, but why don’t you come over here and help with the bread? We’re just cutting slices and buttering them. I’m Nicky, by the way.”
He followed her, feeling his palms sweat with nervousness. There were so many people around him, looking at him. They weren’t mean expressions, most curious or otherwise smiling. Still, he felt the pressure as his heart beat faster with each step toward a station where three others were slicing bread as Nicky had said.
“I’m sure you can figure your way out from here,” Nicky said, still smiling. “I have to go get some things ready!”
And with that, she was gone. There were so many people around, their faces blurring, that he couldn’t spot her again. He didn’t really remember how it happened but suddenly he had a knife in his hand and he was slicing bread. The knife was blunt and the others seemed to be used to that but he struggled for a while. Only for a while, after which he had been doing it so long that he too got used to it. Once they were done slicing, hands from the other side were already buttering bread. The whole thing ran like a surprisingly well-oiled machine; everyone had a job, knew what it was, and did it efficiently.
Before he knew it, Mikael was out front. He had helped carry a massive pressure pot out onto a very old wooden table. He couldn’t help but notice that the table seemed to act as a wall, a barrier between two different worlds. On his side of the barrier people moved quickly, they were healthy and talkative, even those who looked worn-down and tired had a sort of vibrancy to them that people on the other side did not. The people on the other side were slow, even the young looked aged, frail and sickly. He noticed too, surprised though he should not have been, that the people on the other side of the table were very dirty.
A head snapped in his direction, eyebrows raised. He might have missed it if the man had not been so close to him, muscular and tall, dressed similarly to himself. The man had blue eyes, dark hair which was cropped short, and a strong jawline, his skin would have been pale but anyone could see he spent a lot of time in the sun.
“I can’t believe how dirty the homeless are,” Mikael muttered. He realized moments later, he had said it aloud. His eyes widened, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
It was too late to take it back and he didn’t know what to say to make it better, so he instead avoided eye-contact with the handsome tall man and went to work, copying the other volunteers. There were two people dishing soup into bowls and the rest of them passed bowls and spoons, accompanied by pieces of bread, to the rows of people before them. The people in the shelter were patient, never pushing the queue like people out there in his own world would have and they were grateful. Each and every one said, “thank you,” no matter how softly, as they took their food and walked off to sit on some part of the floor or the thin mattresses strewn all over it to eat.
The tall man came over to him at one point, standing beside him and passing out bowls and bread. “Hello, I haven’t seen you here before. I’m David.”
Mikael had to swallow the lump in his throat before he could speak. “I’m Mikael. This is my first time doing anything like this.”
While he spoke, David passed out bread. Mikael found it difficult to concentrate on both things at once, the conversation and the handing out of the soup. His heart rate was still pretty high being surrounded the way he was. Still, the tall man beside him seemed kind and he smiled at the homeless. Once, Mikael noticed that he took an elderly lady's hand in his own and gave it a gentle reassuring squeeze.
“And, how do you feel about this sort of thing?”
There were only two people left in Mikael’s row and he didn’t want to answer in front of them. So he stayed silent, passing out the bread while David passed out soup. Once they were done, he turned to the good-looking man. He noticed the faint pink white line of a scar just beneath David’s eye, running up from his cheekbone to his temple.
“How do you do it?”
David raised his eyebrows in surprise and then furrowed them in concentration. His face was very expressive. He had a 5 o’ clock shadow and tired but kind eyes.
“Let’s just say I have a bit of a history and if helping people was not enough of a motivation, my history certainly is. But I do like helping people. Look at them all,” he gestured to the room. “They are so thankful. They don’t expect things like this, don’t even hope for it, in a world where they have been cast out. The sad thing is most of them feel indebted and they have no reason to be. None of us would ever ask for anything in return for them. In fact, if I were paid to be here right now, I think I would blow that paycheck on these people every time. Actually, I know I would.”
Mikael thought about that for a moment. He looked around the room at them, wondering if David was right. Did these people feel like they owed him for slicing some bread and handing it out to them? He certainly hoped not. That wasn’t the point. He really had wanted to simply help where he could. There were no ulterior motives, even if there were other reasons. They still looked dirty, tired, sick, frail, and some looked sad but most actually looked kind of happy.
All around him, there were smiling faces. They were friendly with one another and kind. There were children running around with a carefree sense of joy. Some had mothers and others did not, but either way they were watched over by the adults around them, guided here and there in what was right and what was wrong. They never hurt themselves or fell or fought as there was always a hand to push them in another, better direction. To these people, this was home. It was a home where they might never have had one, a place where they had no one but each other and the people like him and David—more David than himself obviously—who came to lend a hand where they could.
He realized with a sense of bitterness that he could lend a hand far more than he had been.
He must have been standing silently for quite some time because David spoke again, breaking into his thoughts with a gentle voice. "It was good to see you here, Mikael. I hope you make your way through here again sometime."
Mikael turned to look at David and saw that he was smiling, a tinge of something resembling sadness playing at the corners of his lips and within his eyes. Mikael had never been good with people but had always been good at reading them and he could tell David genuinely meant it. He brought a sense of comfort to Mikael that no one had ever brought and that’s why, without the difficulty that usually accompanied speaking, Mikael was able to say, “It was good to meet you, David.”
He meant it.