Ester B. Brown had, to make a grand understatement, a bone to pick with Miracle Ear.

Ever since 1997 or so, the man had been trying to get money out of them for a behind-the-ear form of hearing aid, and continued to argue them despite the efforts of their PR. She wrote letters back to the irate Mr. Brown, calmly at first, but soon her patience waivering. "Although I can't see why you're writing anymore," she started one letter, frustration evident.

It was an age-old battle. Miracle Ear was trying to protect its financial intrests by not accepting a inner-ear hearing aid for refund after it was worn for six months, when the refund period clearly stated it ended after one. Indeed, their representative that fitted Mr. Brown with the hearing aid said that he flat out refused the behind-the-ear model. Mr. Brown, on the other hand, said that the model wasn't working. That he was a pipefitter for Hanford, and he had a certificate from the government that said he helped build the atomic bomb and, as the copy of the certificate said, "put an end to WWII." Miracle Ear--and Sears, its owner--said that Mr. Brown wasn't cleaning his hearing aid OR his ear, and that it was blockage, not mechanical failure, causing the distress.

The story jumped, Mr. Brown wasn't interested in Sears subsididaries anymore. Lawyers papers attesting to his search for worker's compensation stacked higher. His doctor, Dr. Stevens, attested to his injuries from his job at the site--in 1977, he dropped a pipe on his right foot, and the shock of that pain made him catch his left ear with a second pipe. The tale traced back briefly to the hearing aid--Brown was suggesting that the inner ear device didn't work due to the fact that his left ear canal was surely scarred. The doctor and the Miracle Ear representative agreed: both ear canals were equally narrow, and, the representative insisted, equally blocked with ear wax. However, after that, the subject of hearing aids was never again broached. Papers from prescriptions, written in a hand that was probably never legible. Reciepts from getting X-rays on his foot. More papers from lawyers. For a moment, Brown complained of being exposed to abstestos.

Eventually, one of his lawyers recommended he try filing a suit instead of searching for worker's compensation. But the man wasn't sure if Brown understood. And we never will be.

There is no face to go along with this story. There is no date of birth--although one document said he was 60, there's no saying how old said document was--and there is no answer to the questions.

There's just a pile of microfiche, binded with a paperclip--now a full pile with a post-it note marked "DONE" stuck on one side, a pile of papers that once laid still-warm from the enormous Canon printer that Mr. Brown can read, the machine being too much of a bother and his eyes too bad. There's a check for twenty dollars, payment for paper only--and not even enough for all the wasted copies made.

Then there's the price for the labor--a man's medical story, now completely privy to a wanna-be writer, scrolling and adjusting and hitting print for an old pipefitter.

Even if no one else remembers Ester, he at least has one library worker who was intrigued by his dealings with Miracle Ear.