The Biropractor

The Biropractor came to see us today. He was a wizened old man, yet his eyes shone brightly when he cast his gaze around the office. "Biros!" he cried, "Anyone need their Biros fixing?"

Naturally, we all had a handful of Biros that had stopped working for one reason or another. When the Biropractor reached my desk, he smiled with anticipation, and took some tools from his belt. A lighter, a small piece of glass, some mechanical pencil lead, some rubber, and a few other bits and bobs. As he worked, he spoke quietly, singing the praises of the humble Biro, telling me of its long and noble history. Entranced by his evocative murmurings, the time passed swiftly. Using one or another of the tools, he soon had almost all of my pens working again.

I began to thank the Biropractor, but he wasn't yet done. He clasped my writing hand between his wrinkled hands, then watched as I scribbled a sentence onto a notepad. Nodding thoughtfully, he took one of my Biros, and ran a lighter along it briefly. When he returned it to me, it looked strange, for it had been subtly curved by the heat. Yet, when I held it, I discovered the realignment meant it fit into my grasp much better than before - snugly, nay, perfectly aligned for my hand size and writing style. (Indeed, in the following weeks, I found my wrist ached far less at the end of a long stint of writing than it had previously.)

"Kind sir! How much do I owe you?" I asked. The Biropractor smiled gently, and took from my desk the single Biro that he'd been unable to fix.

"This is all I ask for as my payment," he replied, and he shuffled off towards the stairs.

None of us know what he does with the broken Biros, or the ones he finds under sofa cushions and in dusty corners which he also claims for himself. Some say he recycles them, some that he studies them to find ever-more-ingenious ways to fix even the most incalcitrant of pens. A few believe that he drinks the remaining ink from them, the ink's slight alcohol content enough to lull him into happy drunkenness.

Whatever he uses them for, it's a price well worth paying, for the benefit of having several Biros brought back into active service and shaped to fit your hand, but even more so, for the pleasure and joy of seeing a master craftsman at work.