A filthy, naked toddler cried in the hallway.

After peering out and determining that the boy's mother was crouched nearby with a desolate expression on her face, Charlie returned to the squalid confines of his temporary one-room domicile. The electricity was off throughout the slum, so he lit the single candle that had been left for him. And although he'd read it several times already, he cracked the guidebook open in his lap. Anything to distract himself.

After 15 minutes there was a knock.

"It is I, Mamman," said a voice from the hallway. "I am indeed delighted to supply your luggage."

Charlie opened the door and helped the weathered taxi driver with the heavy backpack that had been delayed in transit for almost a week.

"Is there something we can do for that kid?" he asked.

Mamman shook his head sadly. "He and his mother have AIDs, what can be done?"

They looked at each other, two men with a shared helplessness.

"Here, Mamman," Charlie said, slipping a few crumpled bills in the man's paper-dry palm.

Mamman nodded, and then disappeared down the hall past the sobbing child and its silent parent.

Sometime during the night the crying ended. With his pack on the next morning, Charlie saw that the toddler was gone. Though curious flies crowded around her, the mother sat as she had before. Her locked gaze seemed to cut right through the wall and into the empty land beyond beyond the city. To Charlie, it looked as though she had caught sight of something in the distance, something he would never himself be able to see.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: With five continents under his belt, AJ Episodes author Jeremy Russell is more than a little familiar with the locations featured in the fictional Episodes. A former daily news reporter for the Billings Gazette in Montana, his award-winning writing has appeared in publications from the New York Press to the San Francisco Bay Guardian. He can be accessed online via www.jeremyrussell.com.