They called him Mr. Dao—the man with the bent back and the broom who swept the alley like it was a cathedral aisle. Every morning he lined the curb with neat piles of dust and bougainvillea petals, and every evening he set one little candle on his stoop, the flame shivering like a heartbeat.
One night, a group of boys rolled in on scooters, loud as thunder. “Old man,” their leader, Rin, said, flipping his visor, “stay out of our business. Don’t look. Don’t talk. We don’t need a janitor preaching at us.”
Mr. Dao didn’t lift his eyes. “I don’t preach,” he said softly. “I sweep. Messes don’t clean themselves.”
The boys laughed and vanished into the dark, leaving tire marks on the fresh-swept ground. Mr. Dao sighed, set his candle straight, and returned to the doorway where a faded photo hung—him in a young man’s uniform, holding a baby whose face the years had blurred.
At dawn the alley woke to silence, then whispers. Mr. Dao’s door was open; his broom rested against the wall like a soldier off duty. A neighbor had found him in his chair, eyes closed, the candle melted to a teardrop of wax. He had gone as quietly as he lived.
By noon, Rin and his crew reappeared, restless, ready to scoff—until they saw the picture. The shopkeepers told them Mr. Dao used to mend broken things: radios, watches, arguments. In bad seasons, he carried rice to doorsteps and left before anyone could thank him.
“Why the candle?” Rin asked.
“For the lost,” the tailor said. “Names he didn’t know. Boys who forgot they were still sons.”
The words landed like rain on hot concrete. Rin stared at the broom, at the line his own tires had scrawled across yesterday’s neatness. He picked up the broom without a word. The others followed.
They swept until the alley shone, then placed fresh flowers along the curb—hibiscus, jasmine, whatever they could find. Rin lit a candle and set it on the stoop. The flame steadied.
“We’ll keep it clean,” he murmured.
That night the scooters purred through the alley at half-speed, helmets on, voices low. They stopped once to straighten a fallen trash bin, once to help a vendor fold her tarp. And when the wind threatened the small flame on the stoop, Rin cupped it with his hands until it burned sure and bright—guarding a light he hadn’t known he’d needed, paying respects not with words, but with the quiet work of making things right.
