The unbounded engineer

In a dusty corner of Havana, Jorge crouched beside the rusted frame of a '56 Chevy Bel Air. The car had seen better decades, but its owner still hoped for one more cruise down the Malecón. Jorge, a seasoned mechanic with grease-stained hands and a mind like a blueprint, examined the engine and suspension with the calm patience of a man who had long made peace with the impossible.

There were no OEM parts. There never were. Sanctions, scarcity, and time had turned every repair into an act of creative defiance. Jorge didn’t pray for new parts. He scoured junkyards, bartered with neighbors, and once rebuilt a transmission using pieces from a Soviet washing machine.

But today, staring at a worn suspension arm, cracked exhaust manifold, and a warped carburetor, even Jorge knew: some things couldn’t be bent back into place.

He sighed, not in defeat, but in understanding. “Mira,” he said looking at his customer. He wiped his hands on a rag, “I can fix a lot of things. But I cannot make metal new again.”

In that moment, Jorge embodied a deeper truth. His self-belief, his ingenuity, his years of experience, none of it could override the physical laws of wear, time, and entropy. And yet, he would return tomorrow. Not because he thought he could change the rules, but because within those rules, he still had work worth doing.