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It was a beautiful day in October. It was exceptionally warm for this time of the year. Nevertheless, it should not be underestimated. Even when the sun was shining during the day, it was already bitterly cold at night. Especially in these latitudes. The sun was visible. The warming rays were felt on the skin. At 11 am, in any case. The coldness of the night was not present, but she had felt it as she stepped onto the balcony during the last night to breathe fresh air. The exhaustion was clearly written in her face. How many nights were it now that she found no rest?

It was not just the uncertainty that drove her. Not only the loneliness that drowned her like a hungry wolf, surrounded by thousands of people, huddled in human stables. Hardly space to breathe. No place to live. In the apartment above her, there lived a family with four children. Under her was a man who regularly drank and beat his wife. All this she knew. Everyone knew it. No one said anything. No one interfered. Everyone had the same worries and problems. Would tomorrow be still work? Work that brought so much that you just did not starve. But life? Still better than nothing. No better than nothing? Whoever has to fight for survival every day does not want to. He has no time. He has no strength. He learns to duck. And she always ducked. But even that had not helped. She was dismissed anyway. Rationalization. And now she also lost the apartment. Then she would not have to hear the roar of the children over her and the screams of the woman under her. Still, it was no consolation. She did not think of the top of her and not of the one below her. She did not know them. Just the roar and screaming.

As she hurtled down the stairs and met someone, she carefully watched to walk as close to the wall as possible. She held her gaze. The wall stopped her. She was like a shadow. Embezzlement and contour. The sun shone anyway. Not for her. But it was a little warm. In her apartment it had always been cold. She carefully wrapped a fabric around the bundle that lay on the table in front of her. What should she take? She did not have much. What she had was not worth being taken. She laid the bundle in the arm. Today they would come and throw her out of that hole that she had called flat. But it had been a roof over her head. Now she did not even have that. There was no one to turn to. She carefully closed the door behind her. It was not necessary to complete. She carried the bundle in her arms. Down the stairs, pushed to the wall, there was no one there. She left the house unseen and went on, and because she did not know where, just go straight. She went and left. Just put one foot in front of the other. Until she could not anymore. She took a rest on a bench and laid the bundle on the floor. In the midst of carelessly thrown garbage. Then she went on. And the heart was hard for her.

When the bundle was found three days later, people were not the first. The stray dogs had been quicker and had nibbled the contents. Fine meat. But death came not through the dogs, but through the night, for it was frozen. It could have been a week at most when it died. Nobody knew who it belonged to. Nobody missed it. The mother had gone. Her heart was heavy. She had gone until she could no longer. Then she lay down, unprotected. And the dogs also found her, before human.

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