I wake with bleary eyes to soft rays of light passing through the gaps in my dirty shelter.

Another day in paradise.

Feeling the body next to me I remember that I’m not alone in here so I check and see that thankfully, the old man is still breathing. His fever, though, is still there. I went to sleep feeling worried but thank god he didn’t die next to me during the night. I wouldn’t even know where to start with what to do with the body.

I shake him to try and wake him up but all I get are groans and grumbles in response. The next best thing I can do is check his forehead. His fever is still there unfortunately and I don’t think there’s been any change. With the state of the old man confirmed, I remove myself from the old man and my shelter and sit down beside it to ponder my next moves.

Ok. It’s practically set in stone that this old man isn’t going to get any medical care. First off, I don’t even know where to start looking for a doctor around here. Secondly, even if I found one, how would I even pay for them? Thirdly, even if I find one charitable enough to set aside the money, what doctor is going to full-heartedly follow a dirty beggar into the most filthy slum in the city? Finally, even if I find this charitable and equivalent reincarnation of Jesus Christ, how the hell am I even to explain the situation to him in the first place!

Yeah. The old man is fucked.

He’s just going to have to sit it out for however long it's gonna take him to recover. Or otherwise. But what do I do? Do I leave him here to his fate whilst I go out begging or do I wait it out here with him and see him out to the end?

It may be cruel, but I think I’m going to have to leave him here.

Though I flatter myself that I’m getting by now that is by no means the case. I’m barely scraping by. The little food I can get at the end of each day is meager and by no means fulfilling. I’m afraid what’s going to happen if I miss even one day of food and that’s even to say if the old man is only sick for one more day. It could be a week. Or weeks.

Maybe I should have left him where he was but it’s too late now. I’ve committed to him, he’s my responsibility. So I can only see this through to the end.

I go back over to the old man and check on him one last time. Yep. Still the same. So I take my waterskin and gulp down a good half of it and leave the remainder in the old man’s hands in case he wakes up.

No point wasting time here. I make sure the old man is alright one last time before I pull his coat on top of him securely and set off to go and do my work for the day.

***************************************************************************************************************

Thankfully enough, today worked out alright. My worry for the old man must have carried through to my performance today though because I broke my donation rate for the second day in a row. Another good thing that happened is that the cart came around a little earlier today so I could get in and get back faster to check out how the old man was doing.

When I got back to my shelter and saw him I braced myself in case I would find his cold corpse lying there; thankfully enough, his body was still warm and still breathing.

I checked on my waterskin and found that it was actually a bit lighter than how I had left it. He must have woken up at some point and taken a swig.

He might just live yet.

I grab my waterskin and leave him the food I had saved for him from what I had gotten from the cart before I head off to the river. The light is still in the sky so in the two hours it takes to get there and back I should have enough time to fill up my waterskin and make it back before it's too dark.

Hopefully by tomorrow the old man will be up.

***************************************************************************************************************

It’s been four days since I’ve taken in the old man and there’s been little progress. I’ve left food and water for him every time I’ve had to leave and every time I’ve come back he’s eaten some food and drunk a bit of water.

But I’m not sure what else to do.

His fever has remained constant and obviously he’s been awake but I don’t know if this a lessened decline I’ve instigated or if it's the last hard push before he breaks his fever.

The one thing I’m especially grateful for is that he hasn’t shit himself. But I guess dehydration and malnutrition has helped to spare me that unpleasantness.

I just hope that tomorrow he finally wakes up.

***************************************************************************************************************

“Gygad kjhte ij? Uyatd ak ug?”

Huh?

It’s still dark, but I wake up to an early morning of confused movement and questioning coming from beside me.

The Old Man!

I raise myself up and look at him beside me. His eyes are open and he’s looking around with his arms raised, seemingly trying to figure things out.

I reach out to him and grab both his arms and that then directs his attention towards me. He turns to me and we meet eyes for the first time. They’re a reddy brown colour and I can see the confusion and panic in them as he tries to make sense of things.

“Jhg ty kuy? Tyus ty iudse kop?”

“Calm down old man. You were sick, I took you in. You’ll be alright now.”

“Ase gy de yu! Tyudsa yudsw iusde ty?”

“It’s alright, it’s going to be alright, you just need to calm down.”

“ygte hyu heww ruy dwesyg? Ase gy de yu jus fuder”

“CALM DOWN!”

“...”

That shut him up.

Obviously there’s a communication problem between us that we are going to need to resolve, but first things first.

I check his forehead while he stares at me. Okay. So his forehead is cooler than before so his fever must have broken and he should be getting better now.

Woohoo.

Saved my first life. At least I’ve gotten a bit of good karma out of this.

I look back down and meet eyes with the old man. We confirm that he knows who’s in charge here, so I help him sit himself up before I too sit myself down across from him.

Okay. Let’s try communicating now.

“Bart.” I say as I point at myself.

“Barde?” the old man replies

Well… close enough. He’s old and hard of hearing probably, and my name probably doesn’t matter that much anyway anymore. So I just nod back to him (a gesture I’ve noticed that remains constant with humans despite dimensional differences) and then point to him to ask for his name.

“...Elde” he tells me after some consideration.

With ourselves introduced I reach out to him with my hand for a handshake, a gesture he doesn’t seem to get. Undeterred, I grab his hand from him and then shake it up and down while trying to keep a warm smile and an honest expression on my face to meet his suspicious one.

“ It’s nice to meet you … Elde.”