The man who fixed the radio wore a stiff wool suit.
It was lined with silk and had two pockets, one on the inside and the other external. In the latter he kept his satin kerchief, and, in the former, a picture.
The radio was broken. It had been for years, and a fine layer of dust now coated the once glossy wood varnish. Its dials were scratched, the intricate white numbers peeling off and cracking.
The man took the radio in his hands and tinkered, pulling out wires, screws, and rust covered gears. Finally he had it tuned to a classical music station, and, his hands black with oil, sat down for a moment to listen. At first it crackled and he picked up only static, but then he heard the dulcet plucking of a harp. He had listened to the song before, and was startled to find a tear in the corner of his eye.
It brought him back to an earlier time, a new wool jacket, his very first, presented to him as a young boy, picking apples in the golden leaves in the yard, his mother ladling soup out of a large metal tureen. The smell of rain in the summer, and sitting with his mother listen to the same song on the small wooden radio.
The man took the picture out of his pocket and stared at it, wrinkled and aged as it was. It displayed his younger self, a boy of nearly 5 years, sitting on a tree stump in his back yard. On his right was a woman, with a worn face and a stained skirt. Her lack in appearance was made up for in her smile. It was an expression that only his mother could procure, soft, warm, and wise.
The man dabbed his eyes with his kerchief and put the precious memento back into his inner pocket. He gently lifted the radio, still playing, and tucked it under his arm.
It would never break again.