One cold November morning, I had to leave my car for a routine check-up. The whole district was a grey industrial zone with a petrol smell in the air and tired old factory buildings around. An old slaughterhouse, a recycling center, and lone trees without any leaves trapped between concrete pavement. A couple minutes walk from there was a big construction supplies mall. There it was, between yellow lights shining through misty thick air, a small bakery with fresh bread and coffee smell coming through an open window.

As I stepped inside, a swirl of autumn wind got squeezed in and slammed back by the automatic doors. A baker girl and a baker man were rushing back and forth, taking orders so quickly that you couldn’t understand if a soft fluffy croissant was a part of their hands or their skin color was blending in with braided pecan nuts brioche and puffy apple “pillows”. People around were sleepy and lost in thoughts, some of them were anxious and hurrying to work. The coffee wouldn’t stop boiling and so the bakers had to rush the customers gently to make choices for their orders. The patience could easily overflow like a rising yeast dough, but then there was this gentle voice - without any annoyance, a soft temper - one of those that none of the teachers in my middle school ever had. It was a baker in his 40s, almost bald, a little bit chubby and with a round belly. With his soft hands, he would carefully wrap a bun into a napkin and repeat this movement endlessly throughout the day. When you stood there lost in choices, he wouldn’t hurry you to decide but somehow would look you in the eyes and spur on in a comforting voice that felt like moving through your body straight to the heart and wrap it with warmth just like one of those sweet buns in the napkins.