text: I am alone and cold. Starving and sick. I have nothing. I am nothing. As a homeless woman in the city, I always thought I had to be scared of others; don’t ask for help, don’t ask for a handout. Nothing was worth being taken for granted and losing my dignity and self respect. There was one thing I loved though. Walking through the snow storm makes me feel alive. It’s contact with something weaker than me. I can break through the snowflakes and come out on the other side, cold and wet, sure, but alive. I slip on the wet ground but then I feel a warm hand reaching down to me. I take it and he helps me up. When you lose faith, you gain freedom, but that doesn’t mean it’s free of consequence. He wasn’t a streetman, his hands were too warm. There was no bone-chilling cold. Only warmth. I look at the man attached to the hand I was holding. He looked nice, friendly and welcoming. He whispered to me that all I needed to survive was available to me, I just needed to reach out and take it. I knew it was wrong but I took anyway. I got away with it! I took a bite as I was running and had the most delicious sandwich I’d eaten in years. My body using what energy I had left to run away from the man chasing me. I get out of sight from the angry man and I suddenly see the man with the warm hands again. He is asking me how the sandwich tastes and as I take my second bite I realize that something is not right. The man with the warm hands should never have been able to beat me to this spot, how did he get here? Is this a trick? I don’t care, I’m too hungry to care. I look around and the man with the warm hands is gone again and I am cold. The food I’ve just finished takes some of the pain away but the cold stays. Only the man with the warm hands could keep me warm. It’s days before I see him again and when he shows up, I’m low again, hungry, sick and tired. I swear I can feel death knocking at my door, but the man with the warm hands shows up again and pulls me tightly into his coat and covers me with a warmth I’ve never felt before. I told myself I was right and my actions were justified ‘it’s survival’ I would tell myself. And every time I’d take something else the man with the warm hands would return and warm me up until I fell asleep. I was eating now, feeling better. Still sick, but no longer sickly. I took what I needed and was not apologetic. Nobody would help me, and though I would never ask, I always felt like someone would reach a hand out for me to grab. Someone did. The man with the warm hands. One day after taking another sandwich I heard a shot ring out. I felt the sting and then warmth, my whole body flooded with warmth I’d only ever felt from the man with the warm hands. I dropped the sandwich and reached out for someone, anyone and I felt a warm hand grab mine. He pulled me along until we reached a door. I heard yelling and screaming all around me, but it all felt blurry and muffled. I just kept a tight grip on the man with the warm hands and when we walked through the door, I felt so incredibly warm. My bones no longer ached. I don’t care if this is hell, the only one who would help me was the man with the warm hands. I don’t care if he is the devil, he chose to protect me when I was at my lowest and now I won’t have to worry about being cold anymore. I walked through the door and suddenly there was a bright light. It was bright and warm and felt so amazing. I opened my eyes and everyone there was wearing white and had the most welcoming smiles on their faces. It felt like home. Not my home, but how home should feel. The man with the warm hands finally spoke to me and he said I’d never have to worry about being warm or hungry ever again. We walked through some gates that were really shiny and I was shown to my new room. This was definitely not Hell. It felt really good to be here like I’d been waiting for something like this my entire life.