On the morning of December 24th, an old street sweeper's broom suddenly became enchanted.
It usually leaned against the wall of a small basement room where the old man lived. But every day he would pick it up and spend a few hours working with it on the dirty streets of the city.
That day, when he reached for it, he noticed at once that the broom was different. Lighter. More beautiful. There was something about it that seemed to want to celebrate those special days—the days that remind us of Jesus' birth. The man went out to work. To his great amazement, the broom behaved differently than usual. It wanted to go on its own, did everything it could to spare him effort, and swept and swept and swept, even in places he could never have reached. It wedged itself under automobiles, tugged his hand toward every scrap of paper, every orange peel, every abandoned can.
It was a truly magical broom. The sweeper followed happily behind it, gathered the piles of trash, and tossed them into the bins.
As he worked, he whistled. The people rushing about to buy last-minute gifts seemed cheerier and kinder than usual, and he would have loved to befriend them all. He was so lonely! So lonely in his small basement room! Walking home that evening, he had stopped whistling. His mind drifted, trying to imagine how his Christmas night would be.
There he was, home at last. He had just leaned the broom against the wall and was looking around uncertainly when suddenly—a tremendous crash. The broom, as if speaking in some strange language of its own, fell loudly to the ground.
The old man bent down to set it back in place. As he knelt on his aching old knees, he paused. From the other side of the wall came a faint, sad, desolate weeping.
Who could it be? The old man knew that beyond the wall was a family who had arrived that day—people he did not know. Perhaps the broom, by falling, meant to show him something on this Christmas night: to listen more carefully, to be ready to understand the miracle of compassion and solidarity?
The old man left his room at once and knocked on his neighbors' door. The weeping stopped, but no one answered. He took courage, opened the door, and stepped inside. The room was a chaos of belongings: furniture, suitcases, clothes scattered everywhere. In the midst of it all was one clean, orderly spot: at the far end of the room sat a small, neat bed. In it lay a disabled child who could not get up, unable to move his small legs. He was about eight years old, waiting for his mother, who had gone to wash dishes at a nearby restaurant. Until that moment, the boy had never felt so sharply the weight of his disability and his loneliness. He told the sweeper everything and said softly how happy he was to see a friend arrive. Because that is what they became—friends at once. When the old man offered to set things in order, they invented a special game together. The boy, from his bed, would give the orders, and the man, who now felt truly like a grandfather, would obey. What fun!
"The wardrobe goes here!" cried the boy. "The pots over there, the books there!" "The clothes must be neatly arranged in the wardrobe and the plates on the shelves!"
The boy was so happy to surprise his mother that he looked like a small admiral on the deck of a ship. His arm and his finger pointed authoritatively to where every object should go, and his grandfather followed each order to the letter.
And the broom? The enchanted broom was soon put to work. Everything became clean and shining. When the old man finally drew near the child, he received an embrace as big as a mountain. The mother returned home with glistening eyes and listened to the story of what had happened: the enchanted broom, the weeping in the night, the friendship between the boy and his grandfather. The old man never abandoned his new friends. He soon retired and always played his part as a grandfather well. And the mother? And the boy?
What they thought, I leave for you to imagine. The broom remained forever enchanted.
Natalia Livi, 2002