Mechanical Mike: The Story of a Fixer – End of the Day for September 11, 2014

Another story from deep in my past. I hope you don’t mind me sharing these older pieces on those days when my mind and time are a bit used up. I am finding it quite fun to dig back through this old hard drive archive and see what I was creating on my original Mac Plus back at the turn of the Century.

Mechanical Mike: The Story of a Fixer
By Douglas E. Welch

There once was a man named Mechanical Mike
Who rode around town on a mechanical bike
Gathering damaged and discarded old things
Like wagons and gears and old pocket watch springs
Returning each night to his shop on the hill
He’d create special things with art and with skill
Whizzers and zingers and toys that made sounds
Poppers and plinkers and horns by the pounds
Gathered around him the children would stare
As he whistled and hummed and worked with such care

The children would bring their old broken down toys
With hopes of regaining their once special joys
Parents would bring small mowers and mixers
It seems they lacked what it took to be fixers
All it seems except young Timothy Thomas
He seemed to have skill; he seemed to have promise
Others would come and then disappear
But Timothy Thomas would watch and would hear
While Mechanical Mike told of this tool and that
Timothy learned while together they sat

Mechanical Mike was more than a fixer
He was a magician with tools, he knew every mixture
Of this piece and that, of metal and wood
He didn’t know how, he just knew that he could
He didn’t repair, so much as re-do
He took in the old and returned it as new
Those that would watch him would swear it were true
He could fix anything and everything , too
Something was special and not quite the same
When Mechanical Mike put his hand to the game.

To the children he seemed as young as can be
Adults, they thought him as old as the sea
Everyone found him the closest of friends
But they knew very little of his beginning or end
Despite lots of thought and searching of mind
They only knew Mike had been there a long time
The parents of parents remembered him well
From the time they were children, or so they would tell
Like a family memento, kept year after year
They held Mike in their hearts and incredibly dear

One winter evening, late in the season
Mike shuttered his windows, not stating the reason
A sign was hung on the workshop door
“Do not disturb,” and nothing more
Noises were heard, clashes and clanging
The people heard sawing and bashing and banging
The work lights burned late into the night
But nothing else could be seen, try as they might
They could only just wonder at the movement inside
Wonder and wait for the changing tide

On through the winter it continued this way
Then it suddenly stopped on the first, fine spring day
The doors on the workshop stood open wide
The bright springtime sunshine slanting inside
There in the shop stood a large clock with a note
A hand written message Mechanical Mike wrote
“My time here among you, though happy, has past
This clock is my gift, it will never run fast
Inside is a piece of each one of you
I’ve even included a bit of me too!”

Attached to the note was another small letter
They took it outside where the sunlight was better
To Timothy Thomas the note was addressed
And many a rumor and guess was expressed
He opened the letter and stared with a gaze
That instantly showed him struck dumb and amazed
“To Timothy Thomas my work must now fall
I give him my magic, my workshop, my all
For he has a heart and a mind that is true
He won’t have a problem, he’ll know what to do.”

The clock was removed to the village clock tower
Timothy himself set the chime for the hour
Pomp and circumstance filled the whole day
With Timothy Thomas leading the way
Now each night as the clock chime rings
As the dusk falls and the mockingbird sings
Just outside of town at the shop on the hill
Mechanical Mike sits with them still
There in the doorway as the last chime does strike
Sits Timothy Thomas, the new Mechanical Mike.

Previously on End of the Day: