"What do you want?" he asked calmly, holding out his hand in invitation.

The dirty man's lips were shivering. He was struggling to find his voice. Who was this man in front of him? He could hardly see... could it be? It was incredible. He might have gone insane.

The calm man repeated himself. "What do you want?" there was a lingering smile appearing in his face, so loving, so full of love. It was filling the place. Love, was filling the place.

Some say love is a feeling. An emotion. Some say love is a state of being. Some say love is a decision. We struggle to describe it, to categorize it and pair it to easily understandable notions: feeling, emotion, state, decision. If it were any of it, then why is it filling the surroundings, engulfing the dirty man shivering, crying with disbelief?

The dirty man still hasn't responded. He was crying, shaking terribly. Wailing. Knees on the ground. Hands clutching the floor. Tears dropping. Wailing. He was uttering unintelligible sounds. Shaking.

The calm man took a step towards him. The dirty man crawled back. He started begging the other man to stay away. It was barely understandable. He was begging in a high-pitched voice. But the calm man approached him firmly. He all but cowered away. Suddenly, the calm man knelt in front of him. "Please" he said. The dirty man's sobs slowed down, as if submitting. But at the sound of the calm man's voice the dirty man broke down again. The dirty man repeated the words, "please, please, please..." The calm man took out a rough blanket and covered the dirty man. The dirty man couldn't stop his crying. In his arms, the dirty man cried with abandon. The calm man held him firmly and gently. Consolingly. The dirty man couldn't believe what was happening.

They say the most beautiful thing in the morning is watching the sun rise. As you stand outside of your balcony, and the nice, sweet wind kisses your cheeks. A wonderful good morning kiss that makes you think how wonderful life is. But where they were, the air was wretched with fecal smell from different kinds of animals. Surrounding them were garbage. In the movies the morning songs of chickens were gentle wake up calls. Where they were, it was an irritating, high-pitch screech. The calm man held the hand of the dirty man, and stood him up. They walked towards a small box of a home.

"It's not much, but please, make yourself at home" said the calm man. The dirty man followed, not knowing what to do. It was a small house made of aluminum and wood. "What do you want? Would you like some coffee? Here, this is all we have." He handed over an old piece of pan de sal. The dirty man was hungry and ate it greedily. The calm man got a 3 in 1 coffee mix sachet, the cheapest kind, and mixed it in water. The water wasn't even hot, it was in a thermos whose hot water might have been for the whole day. "Drink it, it's our favorite" said the calm man. The dirty man accepted the coffee and took a sip. It tasted terrible. He looked around the cramped place he was in. His home was at least ten times bigger. He looked at the calm man serving him his family's only food for the day. Questions whizzed through his head as he got his mind back. Why am I here? I was mugged a while ago. I'm a stranger, why did he let me in? He remembered his own home. His nice, big garden. The guards who would greet him. The gates to his house that would open at a flick of a remote. A nice, beckoning path that his car would follow from the gate to his home. His wonderful family. His kid who has just become a valedictorian. His horse who he spent so much on. Would I have opened my gates to him? He snapped out and saw the calm man's little son looking at him. "Who is he papa?" the young child asked. He was wearing a dirty, white sando, and was staring at him with innocent eyes. How could a whole family live in this box?

The calm man's house was not even bigger than his bed.