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Brett's hand tightened on mine as we approached. The old man peered from beneath the white-painted door he carried. Finally, he sighed and shrugged the door to the ground. "I'm here to let you out," he said, setting the door against the wall. He opened it; a pulsing darkness, shot through with colors, appeared where there should have been only bricks.

I turned to Brett, a question in my eyes, but he was already gone.

"I haven't got all day," the man snapped. "Are you going or not?"

I hesitated too long. He picked up his door and walked away.

Cobbler

The little old man with the extravagant mustache remained in his elegant, obsolete shop, serving his dwindling customers as best he could. They left with mended shoes and a bounce in their steps that they couldn’t quite explain, a cheerful, joyous, expansive sensation. Panhandlers knew the blocks around the shop as better than average, though they’d never have guessed why.

The only clue was the hand-lettered placard below the shop’s name in the big window. Most chuckled when they read it. He’d expected as much, but he was incapable of deception, even by omission. It read: “Shoes repaired. Souls resurfaced.”