It was the first time he’d ever picked up a screwdriver. He’d seen his dad using one all those years ago and it seemed really straightforward. You put the end into the screw and then you do some turning and then the thing which is broken becomes fixed. It was as simple as that. Of course his dad was the expert, but his dad wasn’t around anymore.

When you’ve seen something done so many times before, you feel like you know how it would feel if you did it yourself. When you’ve seen so many things fixed in the same way, you feel like anything could be fixed if you just apply the same technique. One two three, turn, twist, fixed. He was excited about making the problem go away and he was convinced that he could make the screwdriver work for him, once he’d got used to the feel of it. It felt strangely alien in his hand, not quite like he’d imagine at all.

His mother was going to be so pleased when he’d finished. She had missed his father, and his discovery of this old screwdriver, just when she needed something fixing was going to make it all better.

Slowly and carefully, he inserted the tip into the power socket.