Jibran instantly recognized her as the girl following Rose Bovary late at night a few days ago. But at the moment her intentions seemed sincere; she might just save his brother's life.

"You give him the breathes. No way I'm touching that mouth," Roxie said as she took over the scene.

Jibran did, while Roxie quickly placed her hands on Rumi's chest, slightly above where the ribs meet--the heel of her lower hand on his breastbone, fingers interlocked the right way.

Like a cat, she repositioned her body, arms straight, somewhat rigid, to use the full force of her slim upper torso. She remembered the routine well, 30 compressions at about 100 beats per minute. Press down about 2 inches every time. After working like an automaton for several minutes, she yelled: "Don't you have anybody to call? I get it you don't want anyone who could report you! But I'm not gonna be here giving compressions all day. He's gonna die!"

Jibran sprang to his feet and ran a series of calls with his cell none of which got through. At last, someone picked up. Instantly, he moved away to the door where the street outside was empty. There was a staccato conversation in a lowered voice, eager and urgent. He came back to his post after a minute; the look of relief on his face suggested someone was coming.

"Can you look closely at how I am doing and copy me? My arms might need a break before help arrives. I'm out of practice."

"Sure."

"Here let me try," Jibran ventured after observing for two minutes.

"You have to do it exactly like this to be effective. We don't know when your contact will come. Is he a doctor?"

"He's trying to bring a paramedic with him."

"Trying? Do you love your brother?" she was quick to counter.

Anxious, Jibran wet his dry lips with a quick swipe of his tongue and took out his phone again. This time, there was even more urgency in his voice, some real pleading. He came back and sat across from her.

Roxie let him take over when Ida brought her some water.

At last, the paramedic arrived with another African kid in tow who slipped on the floor beside the older guy, and held him for support like a friend. The paramedic had the right equipment with him and he worked in step with the girl as they alternated between shocks and compressions. It was after the third that Rumi's eyes rolled over into an inkling of consciousness. The paramedic muttered something to the effect that they might have been just in time to prevent brain damage and told Roxie to go relax.

She was exhausted, having done ten cycles of compression in total, with thirty presses in each one. She left the scene taking off the gloves that she had slipped on fresh before heading out of the kitchen.

Back inside, Ida sat her down in a seat by the small square window near the back door, in the path of the breeze. Pulpy orange juice was her return for the labor, squeezed fresh with Ida's own hands as the lady admitted nonchalantly. A Golabki, a veggie one the girl had cooked herself, was next served in the way of refreshment.

It felt nice.

Roxie let out a happy sigh of relief. The symphony of voices now drifting in from out there assured her that things were on the up side with the boy. She could now dive carefree into the first cabbage roll of her life.

***

"So ... Roxie?"

She started, making her purse drop. Money spilled on the kitchen floor.

The intruder sat down on the floor with her, helping collect the fugitive coins.

With consternation, she realized it was the guy who had brought the paramedic. He was also the flirtatious companion to Jibran the day she had followed that lady to her street from the bus stop.

Hadn't they all left a few hours ago? she wondered, standing up.

On cue, the man stood up and explained. "I'm Omar, the third brother. Can we pretend 'that night' never happened? Start fresh? I mean, what you did out there was a solid. We owe you big time."

"I don't want anything," she simply replied, taking in the tattoed, chain-wearing persona of this brother. He had a baseball cap on backwards and a pair of biker glasses hugged a side pocket of his ripped jeans.

Omar took out a card from his back pocket.

"I know we're trash. Me, and Jibran. Despite what Rose teaches us. She almost like a mother to us, but don't know half the things we do behind her back. But that kid you saved ... Rumi? He's the real deal. The gem. He deserved to be saved and he'll have one person to be thankful for all his life."

"So? He's never gonna see me again."

"Never say never."

She looked at the card which Omar was holding out now.

__________________________________

Flamingo's Nest

We serve the unserved.

Under the Care of the Auspicious

Madame Rose Vincent Bovary

vid: @FlamingRoseMB

__________________________________

The text crossed over the blurred image of a large black rose. There was a fire-colored flamingo stamped in an oval shape in the upper right corner. Roxie remembered seeing the same logo on the hanging sign at the door where Rose Bovary had stopped that night and turned on her.

"I see you got a job and stuff now but I remember you were looking for a shelter that night," Omar continued.

"Yeah? You never believed me then!" she quipped. But seeing his hand on his ear brought a smile.

"You wanna come at me now? Come at me now. I'm standing right here," he spoke without resentment. She remembered he was the softer of the two that night. At least, he wasn't flirting.

"Look. You never know when life throws you in a ringer, do ya? Keep it for the hiccups!"

With that, he left the card on the counter and left.

***

There was a spring of anticipation in his step as he entered the Dragon Alley. He'd run into his friend Jud while waiting for a bus. Jud was headed back to their town thus saving Harry an hour.

The cool breeze of a soft September sky had already chased away the morning blues. Instead, Harry's heart was filled with a rare, reticent joy.

He knew the would have left for work much earlier. But he couldn't wait to find out what she had left behind. That's why he was actually looking forward to get home early today.

Home?

He had never thought of the crumbling bricks of a dwelling at Black Crow Motel as home. But the idea of an alluring girl's mark in the kitchen and an exotic pot of culinary pleasure on the stove had stirred up that word in his heart.

Dragon's Alley was the last narrow lane before he saw the gate to the motel. As soon as he turned, his sight was greeted by a series of happily fluttering garments above his head. They were hung on clotheslines above opposite balconies lining two apartment blocks facing each other, both up to five storeys high.

As he passed under this canopy of many moving parts, the vibrancy of the spring colors and the liveliness of the dance made his spirits fly.

Alas, he did not have an implant in his brain like city dwellers, and the humming verses in his heart would dissolve into the evening light.

At the end of this welcome walk, as he passed through the open gates of Black Crow and reached the last door of the row, things seemed as usual. A strong aroma hit him, as soon as he opened the door.

The biggest pot in his kitchen--a large lidless pressure cooker he had found in the junkyard and scrubbed daily for days before stowing away under the sink--greeted him enthroned upon the stove, covered.

He almost rubbed his hands together in excitement. How did she even pull this off? She must have spent a week's worth of supplies on this concoction, both the size of the pot and the invisible cloud of mouth-watering smells suggested the same.

Well... to eat like a king some time.

He took his time with this. Putting the pot to a low simmer, he went to the bathroom and took a languid warm shower in the standing room stall, the first in many months he had properly enjoyed. The latest Japrock hit rose to his lips as, wrapped in a towel after, he rummaged through his clothes for a good pick.

At last he was ready.

He switched on the bulb hanging in the middle of the kitchen side to have a good look. He removed the lid.

A viscous soup laced with thick meaty gravy - chunks of onion, potatoes, and carrots lolling invitingly on the surface - said hi. But then, as the swirling rolls of steam sought to cast their spell, the lid slipped from his hand and hit the grill with a metallic clang.

The soup, its look, the way it was made, and the smell... that maddening smell... All these sensations zapped him like a bullet train, back to a place he had spent years burying underneath the deepest layers of his psyche.

Once, many, many years before, he had promised he would never look back to what he was leaving behind.

Or he would turn to stone.

And he had succeeded all these years, hadn't he? Ran away, pulled all the thorns of the past away from his skin, without caring how many scars remained. He had plucked away every single fallen petal as the lingering fragrance had devolved into an unshakeable stench.

Yet here he was, in the safety of his own hard-earned shelter, staring the specter of the past right in its face.

As if by a witch's potion, the steam became a screen and a face took form. The same devilish leer, the hard lines around the mouth and the eyes. It was a shape-shifting countenance, now nurturing, loving, supportive, now sarcastic, indifferent or downright cruel... The face that had signified death in the family ... and utter devastation. The face that had ruined it all, sprung nasty street life on an eleven-year-old, snatched out of the comforts of a family existence.

Like a stab to the heart, he finally let himself acknowledge whose face it was... his own mother's.

That the family existence had been a ruse, the comforts only seeming, the sanity but a veneer, was a truth the little boy had lived blissfully ignorant of... until the whole house of cards came apart.

And now, was he ready to turn into stone in the wink of an eye?

Something screamed in him so loud, he lifted both his hands and pressed them hard against his ears and shut his eyes tight, keeping the threatening thunderstorm of memory out.

It was dead to him... it was all dead to him...

And I would do anything to keep it that way.

In a primordial moment of thoughtless instinct, he picked up the pot and threw it with savage force into the sink beside.

For some time, he stood there in an ugly yellow haze. The gloomy glow of the hanging bulb was streaked with the dense vapor soaked in curry flavor, clammy with the texture of suffused panic.

But at last it cleared.

With blinking surprise, he looked at the colorful contents splattered all over the kitchen wall. How much time had passed?

Minutes, it could only be minutes.

He lifted his hands and saw, with heedless eyes, the burns on his hand. The pot had reheated well by the time he had showered.

But that's not where the pain was coming from ...