There was no business that day and Jan Novak had been quite despondent. It was very hard for him to accept the fact that the big, mass producing workshops were gaining on him and other tailors who had been providing the best professional service for their customers. In the big malls, badly made suits and jackets, as well as pants, sold well despite the fact they were quite expensive. Of course, they were not as costly as the suits he tailored but then his creations were unique, fit each customer like a glove, and were of exquisite quality.
Gone were the days when he proudly handed over each suit to the customers, saw their faces light up with pleasure, and heard the praise they bestowed on him. His customers were mostly well to do people who appreciated the cut, the even stitches, and the strength of the thread that were the spine of each suit. The fabrics he carried were all of the highest quality. He would have never settled for less. No customers left dissatisfied. Those who were too fat looked leaner when they left, those who were too thin went out looking more muscular and stronger than when they came in, and even short men seemed to gain in stature once they wore his perfectly tailored suits. He had been so very proud of his art — he believed that art it was — and now he had only a handful of loyal customers. All of them were old and, as time went by, their number dwindled.
That evening when he closed the shop and left the humming main street on the way to his apartment where he lived alone, he decided that he had to seriously consider closing the store. The end was near. He had let two of his best workers go and had to do all the measuring, cutting and sewing himself, with only one person left to help him. His eyesight was becoming too dim to do a perfect job and he knew he could not compete with the new shops and all the marketing gimmicks they used. He had calculated that he could live a simple life for about ten years, by which time, he was sure, he wouldn’t be around anymore. He was eighty years old, a widower without children and hardly any surviving friends to account for.
His disappointment did not apply only to his business. The world was not the one he had known in the past, life had become tedious and tiring at best, and it was not just a matter of old age. He did not even enjoy listening to the radio anymore and the newspapers gave him the jitters. Terror, crime, hunger, misery, hatred, murder, that was all he read and heard and saw on television. Even comedies were enlaced with vile ideas and he did not watch them anymore. For a good laugh he turned to old movies, yet they seemed to be too naive and childish to give him even temporary comfort.
“The world is falling apart, the world is falling apart,” he told himself that night when he turned the light off and sank into a restless sleep . . .
Suddenly his lights were on and sitting at the foot of the bed was a stranger, an old man in a perfectly tailored suit, elegant black shoes and a beautifully trimmed beard. Jan Novak smelled the scent of a familiar, expensive masculine eau de toilette he gave as a gift to all his customers as a token of appreciation.
“You are right,” said the man, in a deep baritone. “The world is falling apart and you are the only one who can fix it . . .”
“What do you mean, and who are you!” gasped the surprised Mr. Novak, “How did you get into my apartment?”
“All that is of no significance,” said the man, “what is important and urgent is that you get dressed, take your biggest, longest needle and the very strongest thread you have to do the job I have for you!”
Jan Novak found himself doing exactly what the stranger had told him. Dressed in his suit and holding the big needle in his hand and a ball with the strongest thread, he was ready to do whatever he was supposed to do. As he stood there in a daze, a strong wind started blowing, the light went out, the stranger vanished in the darkness and he found himself whirling around and around as if in a space capsule. Terrified, he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he found himself floating high above the earth. When his initial surprise and fear diminished, he realized that he could fly despite the fact that he was wingless and that he was quite comfortable just floating around at leisure. He practiced flying up and down for a while and then drew closer to earth. To his amazement he realized that, indeed, the globe was coming apart at its seams. There were pieces of threads hanging from all sides and there were gaps in the continents, mainly in the Middle East, Africa, and to a lesser extent, in other parts of the world. He heard a silent voice urging him to do the repairs. At once he put a thread through the needle’s eye and started fixing up those parts that seemed ready to burst. He worked slowly and conscientiously on each segment, and his experience and dexterity helped him to finish with even stitches whatever part he was working on. And thus he continued, threading his needle over and over again, hoping he would not run out of supplies, and that he could fix the great tears within the earth before it blew up …
The next day the landlord found Jan Novak dead in his apartment. He was lying in his bed, fully dressed, and there was a huge needle with a very short thread dangling from the edge of the quilted cover …