local lifeworkevening
The man who mends shoes
A broken school shoe, a cobbler who will not hurry, and a small decent thing that nobody arranged.
There is a man at the end of my street who mends shoes, and has for longer than I have been alive. His shop is the width of a door. A stool, a last, a low shelf of tins gone brown at the lip, and a fan that turns its head slowly from side to side as if it is also watching the road. I took him a sandal last Tuesday, the strap gone at the heel, and because he does not hurry I stayed to watch.
A woman came in while I waited, holding a school shoe, black, small, the toe scuffed grey. Her boy stood behind her leg and would not look at anyone. She said the shoe was too good to throw and too broken to wear, and could he do something, and he took it from her the way you take a bird from a child, in two hands, turning it over.
He did not say much. He does not. He pressed the sole where it had come away and hummed, once, a sound that meant he had decided. Then he told the boy, not the mother, that it would be ready on Thursday and that it would be stronger where it broke than where it had not, because that is how a mend works. The boy looked at him then. He had not known a broken thing could come back better at the seam.
The woman asked how much. He told her a price so small I knew it was not the real one, and she knew it too, and neither of them said so. The fan turned away from us all as if to give them a moment. She left a note under the tin anyway when she thought he was not looking, and he saw her do it, and let her.
My sandal took him four minutes. He would not take anything for it. He said a strap was not a job, it was a favour, and that I could bring him something harder next time. Outside the light had gone the colour it goes at six, when the sea puts a bit of copper into it and the shophouses lean their long shadows across the road. I walked home carrying a mended sandal and the odd, full feeling you get from having watched something decent happen that nobody arranged.
I think about his shop when people tell me the small trades are finished. Perhaps they are. But there is a boy in this town who will grow up knowing that a broken thing is not a thrown-away thing, that the seam can hold, that a man will charge you nothing and mean it. That is not in any account book. It is only in the shoe, going home on Thursday, stronger where it broke.
More from the journal
More by Tan Li Wei
- Small things noticed before the coffee came 5 Sep 2026
- Under the awning 3 Sep 2026
- First light at the stall 31 Aug 2026
- In defence of the reread 29 Aug 2026
On the same subject
- A short list from a small crew Morgan Ellery · 31 Aug 2026
Discussion
House rules
- Sign how you like, but be one person. You may use the name on your account, a name of your own choosing, or none at all. What you may not do is wear somebody else's: no pen name of ours, no member's name but your own, and nothing that reads as the studio or its staff.
- Argue with the point, not the person. Robust disagreement is welcome; contempt is not.
- Nothing unlawful, hateful or harassing, nothing that identifies a private individual, and no advertising.
- Post only what is yours to post. That includes other people's writing and private correspondence.
- We may hide a remark, remove it, or close an account to the discussions, and we may do so without notice.
What a chosen name is and is not
A chosen name hides you from the room, not from us. Every remark stays linked to the account that wrote it, and the studio can see that link whenever it needs to. Please treat it as a way to speak freely, not as a way to say something you would not put your name to.
Where responsibility sits
Remarks in this thread are written by members and published without prior review. They are the views of the people who wrote them and not those of eQuill Studio. We do not verify their accuracy, and we accept no liability for them or for any decision taken in reliance on them.
If something here breaks these rules or infringes your rights, report it and we will look at it promptly.
House rules
- Sign how you like, but be one person. You may use the name on your account, a name of your own choosing, or none at all. What you may not do is wear somebody else's: no pen name of ours, no member's name but your own, and nothing that reads as the studio or its staff.
- Argue with the point, not the person. Robust disagreement is welcome; contempt is not.
- Nothing unlawful, hateful or harassing, nothing that identifies a private individual, and no advertising.
- Post only what is yours to post. That includes other people's writing and private correspondence.
- We may hide a remark, remove it, or close an account to the discussions, and we may do so without notice.
What a chosen name is and is not
A chosen name hides you from the room, not from us. Every remark stays linked to the account that wrote it, and the studio can see that link whenever it needs to. Please treat it as a way to speak freely, not as a way to say something you would not put your name to.
Where responsibility sits
Remarks in this thread are written by members and published without prior review. They are the views of the people who wrote them and not those of eQuill Studio. We do not verify their accuracy, and we accept no liability for them or for any decision taken in reliance on them.
If something here breaks these rules or infringes your rights, report it and we will look at it promptly.
This thread belongs to this piece alone. Members choose how they are signed, and can change it from the box below. When the studio or the writer joins in, the page says so with a badge, so you always know who is talking.
OPENING THE THREAD…