The Man Who Counted Screws

Every morning, Arthur Dawson woke to the same smell: dust and oil, a scent that clung to the walls like a memory refusing to fade. His garage was his sanctuary, but also his prison. Since Margaret had passed, time had lost its shape, spilling into endless gray hours.

He filled them the only way he knew how—hunched over rusted gears and forgotten motors, dismantling, sorting, counting. Screws, bolts, washers—cold, unfeeling, as hollow as the space inside him.

For Arthur, counting was survival. Numbers didn’t argue. Numbers didn’t leave. Numbers didn’t die.

That afternoon, the rain hammered the corrugated roof like a persistent drum. The world outside was a blur of gray when he heard it: a soft knock at the door. So faint he thought it might have been his imagination. No one came to see him. Nobody had for years.

When he opened the door, a small figure stood there—soaked from the rain, eyes bright with curiosity. She couldn’t have been more than eight. Before he could speak, her hands moved quickly, fingers dancing in the air. He stared, puzzled, until she pointed to her chest. Lily.

Arthur hesitated, then stepped aside. The girl walked in as if she belonged there, her eyes scanning the dim room filled with tools and machines. She reached out, touching metal with her fingertips, trailing them along the edges of cold surfaces. When she pressed her hand against an old drill, she closed her eyes, as though she could feel something he couldn’t.

She didn’t talk. He didn’t either. But somehow, the silence between them felt different from the silence he’d been living in.

The next day, she came again. And the day after. Arthur didn’t ask why. He simply opened the door and let her explore. She didn’t need words. When he turned on a motor, she smiled faintly, placing her hands on it to feel the vibrations. To her, the machines weren’t dead—they were alive, humming secrets.

Arthur began to wait for her visits.

Over time, he learned her language—not fully, but enough to understand simple signs. She taught him slowly, patiently, and with every gesture, the walls he’d built around himself cracked a little more. She was fascinated by his world of metal and screws, but it was she who was teaching him to see it differently.

One evening, the sunset spilled orange across the driveway. Lily stood in the fading light, signing something slowly, deliberately. Arthur squinted, trying to follow. She pointed to one of his machines, then to her heart. Finally, she traced a sign he understood perfectly:

"Your machine is sad. It needs music."

The word music hit him like a forgotten scent, a memory he didn’t want to remember but couldn’t let go of. Margaret had loved music. Jazz records spinning late into the night, her humming filling the house. After she died, he had buried that part of himself, sealing it away with the rest of the past.

That night, Arthur searched through boxes buried under rags and dust. His fingers trembled when they found the old record player, scratched but intact, and the vinyl records Margaret had adored—Ella Fitzgerald, Sinatra, melodies from another life.

He wiped the dust away, placed a record on the turntable, and lowered the needle. The speakers crackled, then burst to life with the warm, rich sound of Ella’s voice. The music spread through the room like sunlight breaking through clouds.

The garage changed. It was no longer a tomb of cold parts and silent machines. The walls seemed to breathe, the screws scattered on the table gleamed like stars. The vibrations filled the space, touching everything—including him.

Lily stood still, eyes closed, palms resting on the workbench as the music pulsed through her body. She smiled, not because she could hear it, but because she could feel it.

Arthur sat back in his chair. His chest ached, but it wasn’t from the pain he carried—it was from something else, something alive. He wasn’t counting screws anymore. He was counting heartbeats, each one syncing with the rhythm of the song.

The record spun, the room swayed with music, and for the first time in years, Arthur listened.

Outside, the rain had stopped.