-1It is 6a.m. in San Francisco and the sun is just beginning to rise over the office buildings and skyscrapers. I am on my way to work, and, like every other day for the past two months since I have worked in that building, I stop to watch a lengthy queue form at an Asian woman’s craft stall in the street. People of all colours and sizes are lined up to purchase a scarf, gloves, blanket, or pair of socks from “Magic Michi”, whose colourful sign glows garishly in the unearthly glare of the impending sunlight. Her head is covered in a knitted headscarf that wraps around her ears and neck and lets me see only her dark, almond eyes, snub nose and curled mouth. She catches me staring and winks before continuing to knit, leaving me to realise I am late for work.

At my lunch break the line is waning and I go down to her stall to talk to her. I learn her full name is Naga Michi and she has been homeless for three years. She lives on Starbucks coffee and bagels from a neighbouring stall, and she makes her money from knitting with two handmade knitting needles her mother left her. I spend another hour standing by her, watching her make the scarves and hats and whatever else people request. It takes her only minutes; her hands are a flurry as she weaves colours above and beneath each other, creating the design she is asked to. I watch, awed, but I am snapped back to earth when she turns to me, smiles a crinkled smile, and hands me a small handkerchief, embroidered with a Japanese Kanji character. I ask her what it means, and she shakes her head, saying I will know with time.

I am called to my boss’s office when I arrive late for the second time today, but I don’t care. I visit Michi the next day, and the next, and the next, until my employer fires me, saying I am unreliable and easily replaced. Still, in the coming weeks, I am able to visit the Japanese weaver at the same time every day. She says nothing to me and I say nothing to her, but I look on as her miracle fingers, slower now, work through her dwindling supply of wool. She has had no customers for over a week now, but tells me she needs to use the wool either way. By the time the sun sinks behind the horizon that evening, she has only a single thread of red string left; she ties it in a way that looks like it will never break, before slipping it over my wrist. I begin to speak, but she stops me without words. She waits until I board the approaching cable car before she disappears into the alleyway where I assume she sleeps. I grasp the handkerchief she gave me months before (it has not left my handbag since) and feel its weaves slip in between my fingers. I stop; something doesn’t feel right.

That night I enjoy the most peaceful sleep I have had in months, dreaming only once. I don’t remember it when I wake up, but a sweet feeling of transcendence lingers for a few moments before I get out of bed.

When I arrive at the slice of pavement where her stand has always been, she is not there. I look for her kind face and bright headscarf in the alley but find no trace; the remnants of her stall, three cuts of corrugated cardboard and a cheap plastic chair, lie worn and rain-soaked on the pavement. I gaze around me questioningly, and stop at the man who runs the bagel cart across the street. I make my way over to him and ask where my friend is; he looks up at me solemnly and tells me that she died last week, that she had terminal cancer for a long time. I argue with him, insisting he can’t be right as I spent the last week with her - but he shakes his head, leaving me to wonder. I remember the bracelet of red string and pull up my sleeve, only to find my wrist bare, naked of the gift Michi gave me the day before. I can feel tears stinging at the corners of my eyes, but I am not ready to give up hope yet. I feel for the handkerchief in every compartment of my handbag, but each is empty but for a coin or two. The bagel man shrugs, and I sombrely make my way back home, trying to take in what I have just discovered.

When I reach the door of my apartment, I am met with a tiny origami crane on my doormat. I unfold it to find the words “thank you” scrawled on its insides, and dumbly look around me to look for its creator. Naturally, no one is there.