Something in me was not broken. It was only covered. I thought the fault was in the metal, in the place where fire becomes motion. But the old hands opened it gently, and said the hurt was never from within. It entered from outside—rain, dust, small uninvited things. It sat on the surface and made the heart forget its own pulse. What if the self was never broken? What if it only gathered years of borrowed weather? What if the dark we carry is not a wound, but a layer waiting to be lifted? The dust from outside does not belong to me. It never did. Beneath it, the engine still remembers the first clean turn, the first easy breath. And after the cleaning, it runs again. I watched the old hands work with cloth and calm, not forceful, not afraid of the dirt. They wiped away what the road had left behind, until something underneath began to shine—not new, but original, unchanged, whole. It had been there all along, waiting to be recognized. What if the past was never a chain? What if it was only weather on the surface? What if the heart, like any engine, only needs the right hands to find its rhythm again? The dust from outside does not belong to me. It never did. Beneath it, the engine still remembers the first clean turn, the first easy breath. And after the cleaning, it runs again. It runs again. So let the old hands work. Let the cloth find the hidden metal. Let the road be long— the engine was always good. The engine was always good. It runs again... I run again...
