Day -46, July 27th, 6:29:59

He clutches his gut and winces. He can feel the movement but dares not acknowledge it—because it, whatever it is—is moving—through him—in him. He lets out a hurling kind of grunt, and then, dreadful pulls back the white covers to see deep red spread across the sheets, his t-shirt, his hand. In the shadows of the covers, in the low morning light, he slowly removes his hand only to see a massive worm, as thick as one of his fingers pushing its way out of his stomach. He cries out, rolls on to his side, and—

He awakens. In a panic he searches the sheets, bleached as though they were new. He pats around his stomach, but the trawling feeling and the motion is gone, though he is drenched in sweat. He turns and there she is lying beside her, her hand clutched to her stomach, her beautiful yellow dress ruined by a massive blood stain. He stammers, paralyzed and then reaches out to help her. As he does, she widens her beautiful silver eyes—silver like tinted glass on a bright day—and she mouths the word, “No.” Then—

Read the whole story so far: The Hunger Engine

Characters and Places: Beatrice, Joe Takanara

Her feet are planted firmly on the ground. Her large back wheels are lifted up into the air in a position of readiness to pounce, to smack. Her frontbucket nose is pressed firmly on the ground alongside her feet, keeping her face up off the ground. Joe is inside of her and in front of the pair stands a small cinder block wall, unprepared—to be fair, no architect could imagine what must be planned for in order for a wall to face this pair. She is like a scorpion, her front lowered in a crouch, her tail lifted in to the air, prepared to strike. Across her pock-marked, yellow cheeks are green tiger stripes and in one spot, near her halogen eyes, written in green cursive, her name: Beatrice.

Read the whole story so far: The Hunger Engine

Characters and Places: Beatrice, Carlin Landingham, Joe Takanara

June 15th, 2001

Dear Brooklyn Bridge,

All this time I thought maybe I was speaking with you or maybe that you knew who was speaking to me. I looked to you for signs, but always you stood rigid and straight. I suppose you moved, in increments, in ways I could not detect. The thing of it is, when I was young, when I saw my first mountain, I was not impressed. It seemed to me like an image and not a thing at all. My mother said that I should be in awe and I confessed that I did not know what that was. She said that I should approach the mountain, put my hands upon it, then climb it, even reaching the top; all until I understood what awe was. And she was right. It was Hunter Mountain; not far from you, Bridge.

I have climbed that mountain three times in my life, and I will climb it again if whatever makes us gives me time. You though, you my mother thought was not much to pay attention to. She saw commerce in you, but I do not think that she saw far in time when you will stand despite that nothing will cross you anymore. You will stand. Of course, I have believed that of many things including myself, only to be proven wrong; for all things must pass. And I know you will not stand forever. Nothing will. But I suppose that rather than climb mountains, I should like to climb you, Brooklyn Bridge. To stand atop you must be amazing. Breathless. I wonder how far I could see atop you.

I think, though, that I have been mistaken about you or things speaking to me and that my history has been playing games with me in my dreams. I believe I found Beatrice. And she is just an old memory, and not the thing I thought she might be. That’s okay by me. It probably means I’m not crazy. Regardless, I wanted you to know that I do stand in awe of you, and that I never had to scale you—even touch you—to know it.

Thank you mighty bridge,

Joe

Read the whole story so far: The Hunger Engine

Characters and Places: Brooklyn Bridge, Joe Takanara

Little Joe is seated in front of the glowing television and watching little demons come out from the sides and sweep contestant dollars away. A tall handsome man inside the television makes apologies and asks questions.

Peter Tomarken:	How tall is the Eiffel tower of Paris?
Contestant Tammy:	1500 feet.
Tomarken:	Ok, Tammy says 1500 feet. Is it A. 1500 feet. B. 1000 feet or C. 2000 feet. Gary?
Contestant Gary:	I’ll say 1500 feet, Bill.
Tomarken:	Okay, Gary, sticking with the first answer. Bobby, how about you?
Contestant Bobby:	I’ll say… B. One thousand feet.

Little Joe nods. It’s one thousand feet. He knows it. It was built in 1889. It is 1,063 feet tall to be exact. It was the tallest construction until She had the Chrysler Building made. The iron tower was built as an entrance to the world’s fair. It was protested by more than one hundred architects and artists.

Tomarken:	Bobby, you got that one correct. The Eiffel tower is 1,000 feet tall. You get one spin for that, and now… let’s got to the big board!

Little Joe rubs his hands together and prepares to watch for the patterns—the way that the highlight moves around the board in predictable (so he believes) ways.

Read the whole story so far: The Hunger Engine

Characters and Places: Joe Takanara

There is a deep Voice in the medium
buried in the strata of the noise
a dream that says a silence is coming
to us;
a partner of the chaos that lay
beyond our comprehension
forever chained to
the sound of fleet drums
too small to see
making noise too vast
to hear

would you, could you
come to the shores of decadence
crawl on the beach of repentance
plead for your independence
as future's color blurs and
speaks of time as impenetrable
your tiny mind naught but
ordered ignorance

would you, could you
seek ideas or even means
all while It seeks being
here and now
then and gone
and you as part

It does not notice you
heed your name
pretend to seek
and in the end IS

would you, could you
know better than to call
the dream, the master, the chaos
come to us in darkness
because we seek and insist
and leave the light on for It?

—Walt the Seer

Read the whole story so far: The Hunger Engine

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. The lights of the stations and the passing lamps in the tunnels light and fade quickly on the express. Joe is rattled and tousled and tired and bored. Lights race by him in the windows of the train cars. They pass by more and more quickly. They are yellow and shine into the car like curious children.

There is a voice playing his head. You are compassionate person. You like other people. You can be around them easily because you, yourself are a friendly person. His CD player spins away in his lap and behind the voice is the familiar sound of a brook running through some woods. Now and then there is a bird call or the sound of insects, or something splashing in the water.

The lights flash by the car. The water—only in his ears—runs.

Read the whole story so far: The Hunger Engine

Characters and Places: Joe Takanara

“Joe! You son of a bitch!” Joe is standing at the entrance to Jodie’s building, unsuccessfully trying to get buzzed in when Carlin comes up with a crowd of five people. “I never thought I would be able to get you to come out to one of these things.”

Joe just shrugs just like a little Joe on about adventure shows on TV.

Carlin looks around his group and then to Joe, “You know Fletcher—” Joe nods, “—and then this is Candice, Amber and Mark.” Joe acknowledges each of them alongside his desire to not meet new people to run in to at the station or around the neighborhood. Between this and the maniac he’d just met, he is beginning to feel that this goose hunt for some woman named Beatrice is a total mistake. Carlin explains that likely no one can hear the buzzer over the party, so he calls Jodie directly and soon the crew is up on the top floor of the building, milling out of the freight elevator into Jodie’s apartment.

Read the whole story so far: The Hunger Engine

Characters and Places: Beatrice Hill, Fletcher Davis, Jodie Copeland, Joe Takanara

Joe walks down York to the East River. There is a small concrete inlet there, Manhattan visible across the way, lit brightly in the cloudy evening. It’s not dark yet, the summer sun refusing to go slowly, but the sky is purple and dark shades of blue east of that. The heat of the summer has subsided somewhat and he knows that the roof of the building to his left will be a beautiful place to be tonight, but there is an apprehension in him. He does not necessarily want Beatrice to be Beatrice. What will it mean? Was she some sort of symbol in his subconscious, and if so, then what were the visions? Why imagine himself bleeding to death in the shower?

He stands with his hands in his pockets and watches the water lap against the man-made stone, that over the years has become pocked and greasy. He cannot see the Bridge from where he is; cannot see past the building where the party is. Then from behind him he hears a cough. He turns and there is an old standing behind him in tattered clothes with bright white eyes against his dark skin. “I don’t mean to bother you, sir—I don’t beg for money, but if you could see your way to giving me some money, I could give you some advice and maybe tell you something about your future.”

Read the whole story so far: The Hunger Engine

Characters and Places: Joe Takanara, Walt Whitman

There is calm near her, but she can not know it. If you could see time race the way that she does—for she is four hundred and some forgotten years old—a day would be a mere hour. The rivers that surround you do not hug, they race, and to where you do not know, and will never know. For your only ability to move is to consume. Everything around you becomes that which you have devoured like so many carcasses. There are those who are like you, who are punished and perish when their little gears stop turning. And then there are those who are not like you and they move with sweeps with no angles, no edges. And that you cannot understand. You make out dreamy things like birth and death but have no idea what all these little combobulating circles are on about. They care for you, they cut you, they gut you, repair you, make you new, they multiply, but all those you love are senseless and they speak some strange language you can not and will not ever understand. With them, it is:

when will you be are She’s just not It’s that tall, I mean you can’t you coming I’m almost that’s the way the gone just like that meeting And I always will can we split wouldn’t believe you take Avenue we always birthday Sometimes I feel like really is dangerous I can’t of course I’m happy That old already? in her best form Suddenly Not eight, no way Do care for you so much not hang up on me if I can’t be there The weather’s gonna’ be real why aren’t you listening nasty 500! 505! just around the corner Delicious! Mommy I just want extra for the chrome finish bar of soap In a world without the snail simply devours its and there you have it.

Read the whole story so far: The Hunger Engine

Characters and Places: Beatrice, New York City, The Machine

Also among the many things about Joe that his mother did not understand was his lunch box. It was a simple black metal box with a rounded top; the kind seen in every photo of a New York construction worker since 1930. His mother worried that it was a sign. The other boys of the neighborhood walked/skipped down the street clutching metal boxes that had pictures of things; especially television shows like the Dukes of Hazzard and Emergency and Lost in Space and Gunsmoke. But Joe eschewed those programs. That much Haruko didn’t mind—they were indeed a waste of time—with all their fantasy nonsense dashed with shooting and smashing. At least all of the game shows that Joe obsessed over were essentially puzzles or had some learning in trivia. Many of them had trivia about the United States and she thought that would help Joe to fit in more. Still, ever curious about her curious son, Haruko asked little Joe one day why he didn’t like the shows that the other boys liked.

Little Joe shrugged, pushed his glasses up off his nose and said, “They’re boring. The same people always win.”

Read the whole story so far: The Hunger Engine

Characters and Places: Haruko Takanara, Joe Takanara, The Lunch Box