大象传媒

Heather Krueger, from Illinois in the United States, was dying of liver disease when a stranger overheard her cousin talking about her condition. The stranger was Chris Dempsey and he asked if he could help out. He ended up donating 55% of his liver and saving her life. But their relationship didn鈥檛 end after the surgery, as they tell Jo Fidgen.

Wim Kruiswijk lives in the seaside town of Zandvoort aan Zee in the Netherlands. He spends his days looking for messages in bottles on the beach near his home. When he finds one, he always writes back. Over the decades, he's made some unlikely friends across the globe, as Outlook's Katy Sherriff has been finding out.

When Eugenia Kuyda's best friend Roman Mazurenko was killed in a tragic accident in Moscow, she struggled to let go, but Eugenia is an expert in Artificial Intelligence and so she decided to create a chatbot - one that she could text, that would respond just like Roman. It was the most sophisticated and advanced of its kind. She tells Jo Fidgen how she did it.

When failed Japanese comedian Kotani Makoto became homeless and couldn't get a part-time job, his friend told him he should try renting out his time as a way to make some money. So now he mows lawns for people, queues up at restaurants and on one occasion was even sent to Vietnam to see if it is more humid than Japan. He's been telling Outlook's Mariana Des Forges about how he lives and how one special customer became his wife.

Main Image: Heather Krueger and Chris Dempsey. Courtesy of Heather Krueger.