On the tram platform.

"Sometimes a sip of warmth doesn't keep the body alive, it keeps hope alive."

It happened at a tram stop, sometime before dawn.

That time when it's no longer night, but not yet morning. When the city takes a breath and is silent for a moment.

A man stood on the edge of the platform. His coat was too thin for the weather, his shoes were soaked. He didn't bark. He didn't speak to anyone. He just stood there looking at the tracks, as if he were counting the sleepers or trying to piece together some old memory from them.

A woman arrived. She had coffee in her hand, from a thermos. She wasn't in a hurry. She stopped next to him and didn't ask why he was here, didn't ask where he came from, didn't ask where he was going.

All she said was:

"It's cold."

The man nodded.

"That's it."

The woman took the lid off the thermos, poured it into a glass, and handed it to him.

– Hot.

The man didn't grab it right away. First he looked at the woman's hand, as if checking if it was real. Then he slowly took it.

He didn't say thank you. He didn't have to.

He drank. The steam hit his face. His eyes closed for a moment.

The next tram took the woman away.

The man was left with the glass, the warmth in his hand.

Perhaps they would never meet again.

But in those few minutes the world was not hostile.

Just a place where someone noticed another.

And sometimes that's enough to keep you from freezing inside.

Waiting.