The Repair

Glimmers of light paint the roof of the bedroom in an otherwise dark space. Not a sound could be heard, although the colorful reflections of the quintessential device creates enough effect for one to imagine that there was. Carla, lying in bed with her phone, eases into the night with a day of high school awaiting her at the upcoming dawn.

One hour becomes two hours, and before she knew it, three hours had passed from midnight. The moon, spherical and whole right outside her window, poses as a watchful eye over her nightly undertaking. Breaking the silence, footsteps emerge. One step, then another step. Slowly inching up the stairs, though Carla too distracted to notice it, a scenario most children are too familiarly aware of.

The to-be intruder approaches the door, silent as an assassin, stalking her prey. She rests her ear onto the wooden door in hopes of searching for any evidence of an awake child. Silence pervades the atmosphere. Then, with the same quiet skill exploited so far, she leans down on the floor and looks through the gaps between the door and the floor. This time yielding positive results.

Snug beneath her cozy blankets, Carla jumped in shock as her door flew open. Immediately the lights are turned on and Carla lies in bed face to face with the enforcer. In a moment of distress, Carla’s phone slipped from her sweaty hands tumbling hard onto the ground. Both her and her instrument have been caught.

“Carla,” her mother said, voice low but piercing in a way that cut through the room better than shouting ever could, “do you have any idea what time it is right now? I walked past your room twice and the light was off, and yet here you are, wide awake, phone in hand, after midnight on a school night. You know the rules. We’ve talked about this. Every morning you tell me you’re tired, every afternoon you complain about homework, and every night you promise you’re going to sleep earlier, and yet here we are again. Put the phone on the desk. NOW.”

Carla, with great effort, removed herself from her bed, picking up her phone, placing it on the table. The phone was placed with the screen facing the table.

“We’ll talk about consequences in the morning, but for tonight, you are going to sleep.” her mother scolded. The mother turned off the lights and briskly removed herself from the room. The door closed right after her.

In agitation, Carla tried to slumber the night away.

After five sleepless hours, the sun finally dawned. Carla halfheartedly got out of bed. Her mind was floating somewhere else far away, at the very least, it didn’t want to be here. In such drowsy conditions, she marched to the place in which her phone had migrated from the event of the night before (the table) and thoughtlessly picked up the device. Carla attempts to turn on her phone. But only a black screen stares back at her. It must be out of battery, Carla assures herself, and puts the phone in her pocket as she heads to the bathroom to prepare for her day of school.

It was in the bathroom that Carla realized the dire straits that awaited her. Upon freshening up with cold water, Carla attempts once more to turn on her intimate friend. Again, this time with no success. It was only under closer inspection that she realized that her screen had cracked and the phone most likely broken. The image of her phone slipping out of her hand last night came haunting back at her. In panic, she rushed back to her bedroom and plugged the charger into her phone. Waiting and waiting. For any signal at all.

At the dining table, Carla sloppily consumes her breakfast which consists of scrambled eggs, sausage, and a cup of milk. There were also muffins on the kitchen counter that were up for grabs as a sweet farewell to the morning meal. As the only child, her meals were usually mute. The only sounds were that of colliding utensils and plates, and sometimes the humming tune of the bubbling kettle. Her mom was mysteriously somewhere within the house, teleporting from place to place, whereas her dad had already left for work.

“You’re going to say you’re tired, aren’t you?” Carla’s mother asks mockingly as she walks down the stairs, entering Carla’s field of view.

“No, I’m perfectly well,” Carla responds defiantly, although there is a weight both on her body and mind from her lack of sleep. She fluctuates her tone as if to ridicule her mother. “In fact, not a day have I been better.”

“It’s always the damn phone. You’re on it during dinner, you have it next to you when you’re doing homework. Aren’t you using it enough already? You can’t wait for the next day to look at it, can you? You know what they call that, addiction. All this while your friends are working hard in choir, orchestra, sports, and academics” The mother reprimands her in response to her daughter’s uncooperative attitude, now standing at the kitchen counter staring right at Carla. “From now on, once you get home, your phone will be confiscated. No ifs. No buts.”

Carla quietly finishes her meal with brooding eyes, whilst the mother starts cleaning the pans from the breakfast preparation. Not another word was exchanged between the two.

As Carla leaves the house, the chief concern on her mind was her broken phone. There are many moving pieces. Firstly, without the phone, Carla wouldn’t be able to contact anyone on her walk to/from school, nor access games or social media, and would have to go through the whole day without her beloved companion. Worse, her mother was still in the dark about the broken device; in Carla’s mind, it is in her best interest to keep it that way. The last thing she wants to face now is her mother’s fiery rage. With the confiscation of the phone set to happen this afternoon, there will be no way that this secret can go on much longer.

It was upon the cement sidewalk path to school that an idea seemingly floated into her mind, perhaps bestowed to her by the clouds floating above: to go to a repair shop. And in this town, there is exactly one. It is a trek in the opposite direction from school, and its location rather remote, with not a single building next to it. It stands as a lone building in the middle of a lush yellow grass field, with exactly a one-lane road leading up to it. Carla has passed by it on nights where her family would go out for dinner. Her parents always remarked that the store was a dying breed, that the hustle to repair a device and the cost at which it comes was no longer worth it in this era. One would find it much easier and cheaper to simply buy a new phone. So time has left the store behind, a figment of the memories of the town. Cold and dark, no one really knows who runs it anymore.

Just as swiftly as the thought appeared in her mind, Carla turned around and started making her way to the repair shop, not knowing the herculean events awaiting her there.

The long march was finally coming to an end. The repair shop materialized through the morning haze, its corrugated metal roof patched with streaks of rust bled down the walls in vertical stripes, probably the effects of the seasonal rain. A neon sign, PHONE FIX, hung crooked above the entrance, its letters blinking with nonmetrical desperation. The letter  'X' was flickering twice as fast as the rest, as though vying for extra attention. The windows were framed by iron grilles which were corroded and so thick with grime and rust that Carla could not discern whether darkness lay beyond them and if there was a soul to be found in this crude building. As her shoes crackled against the gravel, Carla noticed that the yellow grass grew taller here, up to her neck, and if something did happen, no one from the outside world would be able to see a thing. No vehicle rested in the parking lot. No light burned within. Only the stuttering neon sign and the low chime of the wind made its presence known.

Carla stood face to face against the door, her heartbeat loud enough to serve as a metronome. With a deep breath, she opened the door. The weathered door croaked loudly as if to signify the approach of an intruder. Once inside, Carla's eyes searched the store from corner to corner. Her skin filled with goosebumps and a slight shiver ran down her spine. The interior of the store was simple. It was one big room with shelves on each side of the store. The shelves contained boxes of equipment, each labeled with a white sticker with black text. At the end of the room, there was a counter, and there an old man can be seen smoking a cigarette whilst reading a newspaper. Despite the visitor, the old repairer did not say a word, nor did he avert his gaze from his reading. Carla, cautious, made her way to the counter.

“Excuse me,” Carla said, her voice tiptoeing through the atmosphere. “Are you… taking customers?”

The old man did not look up. He took a puff of his cigarette, ash trembling at the tip, and exhaled. “Shop closed, has been for a long time.”

“But the sign is on,” Carla replied, glancing back in the direction of the flickering neon sign, just to make sure she saw it right, “and the door was unlocked.”

The man flipped to the next page of his newspaper. “Sign’s been broken longer than the phones I fix. The door has worn down. Happens.”

“Please… I just need a repair,” Carla said quickly now, her cheeks starting to burn red, stepping closer to the counter before she could lose her nerve. “It won’t turn on. The screen’s cracked.”

“Buy a new one,” he mumbled. “That’s what everyone does now.”

“I can’t,” Carla explained, trying to find the right words to convince the repairer before her, “I mean. I shouldn’t. My mom took it from me last night. She doesn’t know it’s broken. If she finds out” She stopped herself, swallowing her saliva. “I just need it to work. Just enough.”

The repairer finally lowered the paper. His eyes were dull as though they had long retired from the world. He for the first time averted his gaze, studied her face for a moment, then at the pockets in which her phone lay.

“You kids,” he said faintly to himself. “Always say the same thing. Like the world ends if that little screen goes dark.”

Carla retorted. “It’s not like that.”

The man chuckled dryly. “You walked all the way out here instead of going to school. Seems like it is.”

Silence stretched between them. The neon sign buzzed faintly outside.

“I’ll pay,” Carla said. “I don’t have much, but I can get more. I can come back. I can-”

He raised a hand, cutting her off. “Money’s not the problem.”

Carla hesitated. “Then… what is?”

The old man leaned forward, elbows resting on the counter. “Fixing a phone like that takes more than parts,” he said. “Takes a kind of… adjustment.”

“What kind of adjustment?” she asked.

He smiled, thin and crooked. “The kind that makes sure you don’t ever let it slip from your hands again.”

Carla frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“You will,” he said. “After.”

A chill permeated her bones. “What’s the price?”

The man tapped ash into a dented tray. “When I’m done, that phone won’t just be something you use,” he said. “It’ll be something you need. Miss it too long, and you’ll feel it. In your head. In your chest. Like forgetting to breathe.”

Confused, Carla’s heart pounded. Every sensible thought told her to turn around, to run, to accept whatever punishment waited at home.

Instead, she reached into her pocket and placed the phone on the counter.

“Can you fix it or not?” she asked.

The old man stubbed out his cigarette and stood. “I can,” he said. “But once I start, there’s no returning it to the way it was.”

Carla nodded, her hand lingering on the cracked glass as if to remember the texture one last time. “That’s fine.”

The repairer took the phone from her grip with surprising firmness.

“Good,” he said. “Then let’s make it indispensable.” An animated grin surfaces on the repairer’s countenance. 

“I need my phone back before 3 PM today,” Carla stated the constraints of her situation, “would that be possible?”

“Quite a quick turnaround you’re asking for, little lady. Perhaps, I can if you are willing to give me a helping hand,” the repairer holds out his hand in a gesture to request Carla’s help. 

“As long as it will be done in time…” Carla responds apprehensively, although part of her was relieved that it was possible.

“Will do,” responds the repairer with a slight chuckle, “to fix the phone, there will be three materials that you’ll need to collect for me. I will reveal these to you as you go. I will not tolerate any questions from you.” The repairer observes Carla for a signal that she understood the deal before continuing, “so here is your first task: cross the yellow grass field behind my repair shop until you find a lake. There you will find a box in which I store my repair kit. Fetch it for me, child, and I will fulfill your wishes.”

Without hesitation, Carla set out on her journey, exiting the rustic building with the dancing neon sign. Since the building did not have a backdoor, Carla found herself circling around the structure, cutting her way through the grass. The grass was so tall, Carla can see but seven feet in front of her. Yet determined, she trudged on.

Half an hour into her voyage, the sun beamed his smile down on her, revealing the time to be 10 AM. Carla has entered a rhythmic trance. Both her hands poke through the grass ahead, pushing the blades of grass to the side creating an empty space in front of her. Into that space, she squeezed her right leg forward then her left. The action if observed from above resembles that of swimming. Carla was a fish navigating the endless yellow grass field.

Eventually, Carla makes an egress from the grass field and ahead of her lay the lake. She never knew there was a lake here before; it was under her impression there were no bodies of water around her town. Carla scans the scene in front of her but a box is nowhere to be found. But in its absence, she saw a beautiful landscape, a direct contrast to the urban sprawl atmosphere of her neighborhood, each side surrounded by highways.

She approaches closer to the edge of the lake. The water was blurry due to the scurrying sand but just clear enough where one can see to the bottom of the lake. A few seconds passed until Carla finally spotted an object in the water, just ten feet off the shore. However at that distance, the water was too murky for Carla to make an accurate assessment of what that object truly was.

Carla slipped off her shoes and set them neatly on the shore. The water kissed her ankles, cool and gritty. With each step forward, the lake floor rumbled beneath her feet, sand billowing upward in pale clouds. She squinted, trying to track the dark shape ahead.

There.

She bent down quickly, arm plunging into the water. Her fingers met nothing but the clouds of sand.

Annoyed, Carla waded another step forward. The sand swirled thicker now, turning the water opaque, swallowing the object whole. She reached again, sweeping her hand side to side, faster this time, as if speed might force the lake to cooperate.

Nothing.

Her breathing quickened. She tried again, another step, another grab, another failure. The more she moved, the worse it became. The water churned into a dull brown haze, the lake bottom vanishing entirely. The object might as well have disappeared.

“This is stupid,” she muttered to herself.

She stood there, arms wet and cold, heart pounding. Her knees barely visible to herself, submerged under water. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a clock ticked loudly: school, her mother, three o’clock. The thought made her restless. She shifted her weight again, instinctively, and the water only grew cloudier.

Carla stopped.

She didn’t know why at first. Maybe exhaustion. Maybe frustration. Or maybe the quiet finally reached her. No notifications. No voices. No buzzing neon signs. Just sunlight glinting off the surface. The distant whisper of wind bending the yellow grass behind her. The chirpings of the birds somewhere far away. Carla, for once, felt rather liberated by the absurdity of the situation. She eased her shoulders, untightened her palm, and just stood there.

She took a breath. Then another.

Carla stood still.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the sand began to fall. The cloudy water thinned, particles sinking back to where they belonged. The lake revealed itself again, calm and unbothered by her urgency.

And there it was.

The box rested plainly on the lakebed, no longer mysterious or hidden. Just a small, metal container, dulled by time, sitting patiently where it had been all along. Perhaps, it knew that one day, a visitor, strange and young, would visit it, to bring it back to life, for it to fulfill its duty once more.

Carla crouched carefully this time, moving as if the water were fragile. She lowered her hand without stirring the sand, fingers closing gently around the box’s edge. Solid. Real. She lifted it from the lake. Water streamed from its corners as she brought it to her chest, relief washing over her. Once she made it out of the water, she put back on her shoes and proceeded to make her way back to the store.

“That went faster than I expected. Perhaps, I can even get it back to you by 2 PM,” the repairer so barely grinned, one could mistake it for a slight tweak of the mouth. “Now, for your next task, you have to collect something that wakes the dead. You’ll find it where a car’s broken down and people grow impatient.”

Carla left the repair shop with the repairer’s words echoing in her head. Something that wakes the dead. The one-way road stretched ahead of her like a thin scar through the grass field, its asphalt faded and cracked, rarely used except by the unlucky… like her. She checked the sun’s position. Still before noon. She picked up her pace.

The road was quiet. No hum of engines, no rush of passing cars. Just wind brushing past her ears and the crunch of gravel beneath her shoes. Carla was halfway down the road when she saw it: a sedan pulled awkwardly to the side, its hood propped open like a mouth about to devour the man standing in front of it.

The man stood with one hand on his hip, the other rubbing his forehead. A boy, no older than ten, sat on the curb nearby, legs dangling, swinging back and forth as he kicked pebbles into the road. Not my problem, she thought. She felt already behind schedule.

“Hey, excuse me!” the man called out.

She pretended not to hear.

“Miss?” His voice cracked slightly. “Could you help us for just a minute?”

Carla stopped. She sighed, irritation blooming in her chest, and turned around. “I’m kind of in a hurry,” she said, though she didn’t walk away.

“We won’t take long,” the man said quickly. “The car just died on us. Won’t start at all.”

The boy looked up at her, squinting against the sun. “We were almost home,” he added, as if that would give her a change of heart. It did, however, remind her of herself just moments ago, pleading with the repairer.

Carla glanced down the empty road and it was obviously clear that no help was coming. She rubbed her arms, already tired at the thought of it. “What do you need?”

“Just help pushing it to the shoulder,” the man said. “I’ve got jumper cables in the trunk once we’re out of the way.”

That caught her attention.

They positioned themselves behind the car. The metal was hot under Carla’s palms. “On three,” the man said. “One. Two. Three.”

They pushed.

The car resisted at first, stubborn and unmoving. Carla’s legs strained, her breath turning heavy. The boy grunted beside her, small hands pressed flat against the trunk, trying anyway. Slowly, the car gave in, rolling inch by inch until it rested safely off the road.

Carla bent over, hands on her knees, lungs burning. Sweat trickled down her neck.

“Thank you,” the man said, genuine relief in his voice. He opened the trunk and pulled out a tangled set of jumper cables. “Please… take these. You earned them.”

Carla hesitated, then accepted the weight of them. Solid. Useful.

As she walked away, cables slung over her shoulder, she realized something surprised her. She wasn’t thinking about the time anymore.

When Carla returned, the repairer took the jumper cables without comment. He coiled them neatly, fingers practiced and precise, as if they had always belonged there.

“You’re learning,” he said at last. “That’s good. Means you’re ready for the last task.”

Carla straightened. “What is it?”

“This one,” the repairer said, meeting her eyes, “you don’t fetch from fields or roads. You already know where it is.” He paused. “Go home. Bring me what you’ve been avoiding.”

Before she could ask anything else, he turned away, already busying himself behind the counter.

Carla ran. The familiar streets felt different now, too loud, too fast. When she reached her house, she slowed, heart hammering. The front door was unlocked. Inside, the air smelled faintly of coffee and cleaning spray.

She slipped her shoes off, tiptoeing in, and then froze.

Her mother’s voice drifted from the kitchen.

“Yes, this is Carla’s mom… No, she didn’t come to school today… I don’t know where she is.” A pause. Carla held her breath. “She’s never done this before.”

Carla pressed herself against the wall, unseen.

“I shouldn’t have yelled,” her mother continued, voice cracking. “I just… she’s always so tired. Always on that phone. I didn’t mean to be cruel. I just want her to be okay. I want her to sleep. I want her to be happy.” Another pause, quieter now. “I’m scared.”

The word landed harder than any punishment.

“I love her,” her mother said softly, more to herself than the phone. “I don’t know how to reach her. She’s not picking up her phone.”

Carla’s chest tightened. She stepped into the kitchen.

“Mom.”

Her mother spun around, eyes wide. For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then her mother crossed the room in three steps and pulled Carla into a fierce embrace.

“Where were you?” she whispered, voice shaking. “Do you have any idea-”

“I’m sorry,” Carla said, the words tumbling out. “I lied. I skipped school. I broke my phone. I was scared you’d be mad, and I didn’t want to deal with it, so I just ran. Ran away.”

Her mother loosened her grip just enough to look at her. “Your phone?”

Carla nodded and pulled it out, holding it between them. The cracked glass caught the light. Her fingers linger on the broken screen, “I didn’t mean for it to matter so much. I just didn’t know how to stop.”

Her mother exhaled, long and tired, and rested her forehead against Carla’s. “I don’t care about the phone,” she said. “I care about you.”

Carla swallowed.

“I know.”

They stood there for a moment longer, neither of them moving. The kitchen felt smaller than she remembered, but warmer. Sunlight spilled across the counter, catching on crumbs near the cutting board and the thin film of steam rising from a forgotten mug of coffee. The refrigerator hummed softly, steady and unconcerned.

Her mother released her at last, hands lingering at Carla’s shoulders, as if making sure she was real. “Sit,” she said gently, nodding toward the table.

Carla did. The chair scraped lightly against the floor. Her phone rested in her palm, screen fractured like spiderwebs, dark and unresponsive. She turned it over once, then again, feeling the familiar weight, the smooth edges worn from years of use.

Her mother busied herself at the counter, more out of habit than purpose: straightening a stack of mail, rinsing a mug that didn’t need rinsing. Carla watched her move, the way her shoulders rose and fell with each breath, the faint tremor in her hands slowly settling.

“I thought you’d be angry,” Carla said quietly.

Her mother shook her head. “I was scared,” she corrected. “That’s different.”

Carla nodded. The silence that followed wasn’t heavy. It simply existed. Outside, a car passed by, tires hissing against the pavement. Somewhere down the block, a dog barked and then stopped.

Carla looked at the phone again. At how still it was. How quiet. She realized she had gone hours without it buzzing in her pocket, without the itch to check it. The world hadn’t collapsed. Time hadn’t run away from her. She set the phone down on the table. The sound it made was small, almost nothing.

“I don’t think I need to go back,” Carla said, more to herself than anyone else.

Her mother turned, studying her face. “Back where?”

Carla glanced toward the front door, toward the road beyond it, toward the lonely repair shop standing somewhere in the field. “To fix it,” she said. “I thought I did. But I don’t.”

Her mother didn’t argue. She only nodded and pulled out the chair across from Carla, sitting down at last. She brought her hand, on it, a muffin. One that Carla did not eat this morning, like she would every other morning.

Outside, the afternoon light shifted, inching across the floor. The clock on the wall ticked steadily, unhurried. Carla leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, just for a moment. When she opened them again, the phone was still there, exactly where she’d left it.

And for the first time, that felt enough.