Out past the edge of nowhere, where the road turns to gravel and the sky swallows the earth whole, there’s a man with a truck full of tools. People call him Fixer. Not his real name, but it fits him fine.
He stops where he’s needed. A broken fence, a busted generator, a coffee pot that won’t percolate right—Fixer’s got the hands for it. He never asks for money, just nods when folks offer him a plate and a place to sit. Some say he’s a drifter, others say an angel. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
One evening, he rolls into a town that smells like rain before the storm. A woman stands on her porch, arms crossed, watching him the way folks watch something they don’t trust yet.
“You fix things?” she asks.
He nods.
She steps aside. “Come inside, then.”
He follows, expecting a leaky sink, a blown fuse. But there’s nothing broken here. The house is clean, the lights work, the floorboards don’t creak. The woman sits down at her kitchen table, sighs like someone carrying something too heavy to put down.
“Thought maybe you could fix me,” she says, voice quiet as the wind through dry grass.
Fixer runs a hand over his chin, thinking. “Ain’t much for fixing what ain’t broke,” he says.
She laughs at that, but there’s no joy in it. “Then why’s it feel like I am?”
Fixer doesn’t have an answer. Instead, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a worn-down screwdriver. He places it on the table between them.
“Sometimes,” he says, “you gotta take something apart to see it was whole all along.”
The storm rolls in that night, washes the dust off the town. In the morning, Fixer is gone, but the screwdriver is still there, right where he left it. And the woman?
She picks it up. Turns it over in her hands.
And for the first time in years, she feels steady.