My car started giving me some strange sounds from the engine. I thought, “maybe it needs some rest” and didn’t use it for a few days. I would like to see cars that can heal themselves like humans and animals do. Just give it some rest in a quiet place, give it a lot of warm drinks, and it will heal itself in a couple of days.
I asked Claude.ai to write a story based on it.
The check engine light had been blinking for three days, and the noise from under the hood sounded like a dying animal. Thompson knew he couldn’t afford another mechanic’s bill. Not after last month’s transmission work.
He remembered what his grandfather used to say about sick horses: “Sometimes all they need is rest and care, son.” Thompson wasn’t sure why that memory surfaced now, but it stuck with him.
That evening, he drove his 2019 Chrysler into the old barn behind his house. The car’s coughing grew worse with each mile, metal grinding against metal. He parked it in the darkest corner, where shafts of sunset leaked through the weathered boards.
“You just rest here,” he said, feeling foolish for talking to a machine. He filled the tank with premium gas—“warm soup,” he called it—and covered the car with his grandmother’s old quilt. The temperature in the barn stayed warm, like a fever ward in a country hospital.
Each morning and evening, Thompson would visit. He’d pat the hood gently and pour in fresh oil, which he’d heated slightly in the microwave. “Medicine,” he’d whisper. Sometimes he’d sit in the driver’s seat and read aloud from car magazines, like a parent reading bedtime stories to a sick child.
On the fourth day, the strangest thing happened. The engine turned over with a purr he hadn’t heard in years. The check engine light was dead. The grinding had vanished. As Thompson backed out of the barn, he could have sworn the steering felt more responsive, like a horse eager to run after recovering from a long illness.
That night, he called his brother, a mechanic in Detroit.
“Cars don’t heal themselves,” his brother laughed. “It’s all mechanical. Probably just some loose debris that settled out during the rest.”
Thompson agreed, of course. But he never told his brother about the small oil stains on his grandmother’s quilt—stains that looked remarkably like tear drops.
The next week, when his neighbor’s Toyota started making a clicking sound, Thompson just smiled and said, “I know a place that does wonderful work. Very old-fashioned. All it costs is time and kindness.”
The cover image was generated by DALL-E based on the text of the story.