Freddie Halter has a worn sole. His left foot is fine; it follows a path as straight as a railway track. It’s his right one that derails, drawing semicircles in tow, collecting grit and gravel in the worn arches of his boot, as well as the stares from other morning walkers. But it has never once stopped him from making the half-mile trip to collect his soda bread from his favourite piekarnia on the street corner. He makes sure he is the first customer, before the loaves’ tanned shells have hardened, so that when he tears off a chunk, a doughy steam puff is freed.

This morning, Freddie is full of song. He whistles, loud and tuneful as a charm of finches, and buoyant to the rhythm of his uneven stride. He spots Tomasz. His old friend is unwinding the awning to his bakery, chalky palmprints smeared across his lap and buttocks.

They flash teeth and cup each other’s shoulders.

“Mój przyjaciel.” My friend.

Inside, Tomasz has already prepared a paper bag and folded a proziaki inside with the change to Freddie’s one-hundred złoty banknote.

A man appears at the door to the tinkle of a bell overhead. He has propped his bicycle against the shop window, a wicker basket cable-tied to the front, rust curling from the frame.

He greets them both: “Gentlemen.”

Something twinges at Freddie, gentle but unignorable, like a child tugging at his threads from a former life. He can’t quite place it.

“Four bułka, please,” the man says, inhaling a whiff of the buns spaced across the stacks of trays at his side.

Freddie turns to leave. He pauses to the tap of a finger on his back. The cyclist squints at him; both minds scramble for something they’ve lost, except the item in question isn’t finding its place in their mouths.

“I…I wondered if you have far to go?” His eyes drift over Freddie’s lame limb. “It’s just, I have a bicycle, perhaps I could save you the trip next time and drop it off to you.”

“That’s kind. But the walk is what makes it all the more worth it.”

“Of course,” the man says, resting his elbows on the counter. His sleeves are drawn up to his mid-forearm revealing a string of digits too long to be an anniversary date.

Freddie says nothing. His head pops bubbles like the next batch of soda bread browning in the gas-fired oven, and suddenly he wishes he had brought his stick. Unthinking, he squeezes his right forearm, where his own digits are stamped.

Their eyes catch once more, their past lives caught in the glisten: both striped, bare-headed, and wincing at the whistle of cane through air, splintering shin.

Freddie and his right foot exit the shop to the bell’s chime. He has forgotten the tune he whistled. Instead, he stuffs a chunk of steaming bread into his mouth and shuffles the half-mile walk home.