Gus is barking his tiny brown head off, Mr. Thomas must be near. Gus came along four years ago, a pint-sized wolf in mongrel clothes. I glance down at my flour-dusted trousers and open the door a crack to greet Mr. Thomas. But I see it’s not Mr. Thomas, but a stranger. I quickly slam the door, hoping that he hasn’t seen me. There is a violent crashing sound as the mail is forced through the letterbox. Gus chokes himself trying to grab the hand, but he’s too late. I finally let him go and he gives me an angry scowl. I probably shouldn’t have slammed the door, but you never know, better safe. Lock the door. Check. Locked? Locked. Locked? Locked. Final check: locked? Locked. It’s locked.
A laptop illuminates the otherwise darkened room. On the screen is a website that she is all too familiar with, the one that has been taunting her for months. A new photo has been uploaded within the past couple of hours. She pulls out a chair but chooses not to sit – the surfaces are damp and the whole apartment smells of bleach and lemon.
We meet every morning in the coffee shop next door to the hotel. There’s Zia, with his three shots of espresso and who knows how many packets of sugar. Ali takes his coffee with plenty of cream. Aqmed orders one of those fancy drinks with an Italian name I wouldn’t dare try to pronounce. Every day something different. “What is it today?” Zia always asks Aqmed, as if there’s something a bit too girlish about Aqmed, a man who doesn’t drink his coffee black and strong. Then, of course, there is me. Omar. I am a tea man.
 She sat in the chair waiting. Let it come, she thought. I am prepared for every eventuality, and when it comes I will not be surprised. Nonetheless, she was tense, apprehensive, alert, and when the doorbell rang her blood froze. Now, she would say. Here it comes. She tried to hide, inside the room, inside herself, but still she heard the sound of the doorbell like someone screaming in her ear. She tried to make herself smaller and smaller and sometimes even fled to the farthest corner of the room. The farther away she was the less she felt the threat. Sometimes she turned her face to the wall and began to count, ring by ring, and if the ringing did not stop began to mumble words of entreaty or supplication.
He was a tall sheepish gentleman in his late fifties. His eyes were gentle, his chin was weak, his shoulders were starting to stoop.  His legs were thin and wobbly, his hair was thinning and gray. And he walked with the hesitant stride of a crane, his head bobbing forward with every step. Watching him amble along the street, one would never guess him to be an artist. A servant, perhaps, a beggar more likely, but  not an artist: a soul unencumbered by earthly snares and committed to only the Muse. But an artist he was, and no mere artist at that. He was an artist in the most gallant of mediums: the daring realm of street performance.
