Day -194, March 1, 6:30:00am The subway car is rattling along. It is lurching and throwing itself in every direction. Joe is standing inside of it, bouncing around in its long steel bowel. Another man watching from the platform sees the express go by. He sees Joe go by. Inside the train, Joe is walking from one end of the a car to the other end. The waiting man on the platform sees Joe walk by at forty miles an hour. Briefly Joe is a vision between squares of light and rusted beams and then gone.

Day -187, March 8, 5:30:00am The subway car is rattling along. It is lurching and throwing itself in every direction. Joe is standing inside of it, bouncing around in its long steel bowel. A man standing next to Joe is falling in and out of sleep and occasionally nudges up against Joe. Joe lets him, assuming the man would be embarrassed if he said anything.

Day -176, March 19, 5:36:14am The subway car is rattling along. It is lurching and throwing itself in every direction. Joe is standing inside of it, bouncing around in its long steel bowel. There is a girl in a short skirt in the seat across from Joe’s. She’s reading the New York Post. He looks briefly at her knees until he becomes uncomfortable and then pretends to be looking at an advertisement near her head. Suddenly, the man seated next to her says, “Take a picture, weirdo, it’ll last longer.”

Joe looks shocked. She looks up from her paper at Joe and then to the man next to her. She folds her paper and hits him in the shoulder. “Shut up, Gary.”

“I’m jus’ sayin’ is all.” He gives Joe one more look, blank, and then leans in to her to look over her shoulder at her paper. “Why you care about those goons?”

“Shut up, Gary.”

Joe twiddles his thumbs, wishing he hadn’t forgotten a book or his CD player.

Read the whole thread: The Hunger Engine

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