11 o'clock. Who's knocking? I get night visits sometimes, but neither Pete nor John called today.

I open the door, just enough to stick my head outside. There she is; holding a computer and a box, Bertha is standing in front of me.

"not right now!..."

I am shouting to myself in my head. My apartment is such a mess, with stuff everywhere; half-empty bags scattering on the floor; and some unidentifiable stuff stinking in secret corners.

"As a rule, unexpected visits should be blindfolded. And it's safer to also cover your nose."

As a good girl who always listens to her parents, Bertha covers her face using the pink sleeve of her pajama and steps into my apartment.

"I think my router is broken. And for some reason my laptop can't connect by Ethernet. I figured you probably were still up and can take a look……"

"Yes sure I guess I can give it a check".

I settled her down on my sofa-bed; fortunately the bed is still clean. Her computer works apparently in my apartment. Her router was messed up on a strange parameter; I would say it's a trojan but probably not a good idea to make it so scary. She left happily with all the
problems fixed.

Worked for a little bit, and had my routine 3 hours of sleep, I woke up following another soft knocking, knocking.
"I'm doing some work but my system suddenly crashed! I'm afraid I lost all my work."

She looks pretty miserable this time. I checked her hard drive. The system file is pretty much messed up. Fortunately there is still a way to recover the documents. I burn the file she needs on a disk, and that was that.

It's late in the night. Everything is very quiet, except my forever-moving machine still swinging; and I swear I hear the bamboo growing. She is sitting there reading my book, like an angel. My heart is beating like crazy. It might be a perfect time to grab her in my arm. But we are only friends, and I should let her go. So I just sit remotely to the door and watch her leave.

Worked for another 4 hours, the work is almost done and my head is ready to explode. Knock, knock, knock comes again. I open the door but this time nobody is there. On the floor is a tray with a glass of coffee and a huge muffin.

"hey, you know I hate coffee".

I manage to get along with the usual discomfort to unexpected kindness.

This is a very bright morning; I refill myself with the fresh air, as I explore the world full of possibilities.