Write a passage in the style of your favorite book.

I don’t really have a favorite book. Well, that’s not exactly true. I do have a favorite book, but it’s a book of poetry, The Last Night Of The Earth Poems by Charles Bukowski. I’ve read that book more times than I can count and it goes with me everywhere. However, since we all know how badly I suck at teh poetry, I won’t attempt that again. Instead, I’ll write a passage in the style of the last favorite book I read, Knut Hamsun’s Hunger.

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When I closed my eyes, I saw only individual words, not sentences. They huddled around me, pecking at my brain, yet they refused to come out until I got some sustenance in my belly. When I put my stub of a pencil to paper, all it would write was the word hunger. My stomach refused to let me think of anything else. It had been two days since I’d eaten. What my misguided, frivolous anatomy refused to realize was that, without the words on paper, I could not get it what it required. I needed to sell this article. But before I could do that, I needed to write it and it simply wouldn’t allow me. It was only perpetuating the problem with its heedless cries of want. Stomachs are very unintelligent. I gave it a jab with my fist. That shut its pointy little mouth for a moment.

I told my stomach not to worry. We would go outside to see what we could find. There had to be ampler opportunities of procuring what it lacked outside of the little ramshackle room with no food nor furniture. We stumbled out into the street, my empty stomach and I, to find the sun pointing in our direction. What a day! Immediately, we began to feel better about our station in life and the odds seemed in our favor.

There were such fine people milling about, seemingly without a care in the world. They probably all had proper breakfasts this morning. I pretended to be one of them and doffed my cap to the passing ladies.

Presently, I noted a man approaching from the other direction. I knew this insufferable man from a former life of mine when there was always food on the table. My colleagues and I used to call him the Rambler because he never stopped talking. Before I could duck into a doorway, he spied me, bowed slightly and made his way towards me. There was no escape. Just then, the prospect of this encounter took a turn for the better as I recalled that he owed me ten kroner.

The Rambler approached and asked politely into my circumstances. I told him that everything was going as well as could be expected. He prattled on about people I no longer knew nor cared about as I wondered whether it would be fitting to ask him for the money he owed. It was a gentleman’s loan made some years back. Surely, it would not be improper to ask, gentleman to gentleman, since I had already fibbed by implying that I wasn’t destitute. Besides, he had indecorously asked to borrow the sum, so it was only fitting that I indecorously ask in return.

It seemed he had forgotten our financial transaction, otherwise, he would not be standing before me blathering on. If nothing else, the request for the sum he owed would put an end to this idiotic, one-sided conversation he was having. I decided to put the question to him. He deflated like a balloon. His chest caved in on itself and he grew four inches shorter in an instant.

He glumly reached for his billfold, and inside, were five crisp, ten-kroner bank notes. Clearly, he had just received his wages. He pulled one out and reluctantly handed it to me. His hand instinctively refused to let go of it. I gave it a mild tug and a crumpled tenner was in my possession! In addition, as I suspected, the financial exchange did indeed put a stop to the insipid conversation with the mealy-mouthed young executive. The Rambler bid me good day, bowed slightly, returned his hat to his head, and walked in the direction from which he had come, evidently forgetting his errand or not having had one in the first place.

I stood there on the sidewalk for a moment, holding the ten just as he had unwillingly given it, while the enormity of what had just transpired sunk all the way down to my stomach. When my stomach had done the calculations, it commanded my brain to go in search of food. My brain understood the command and added a flourish of its own; forcing me to skip down the street flailing my arms wildly like a madman whilst singing an unseemly song about barmaids. I took little note of the askance looks I received from passers-by and skipped my way to the nearest cafe. I barged in the door and yelled, “beefsteak!” to whomever would listen. A few minutes later, a homely little waitress with short arms brought me deliverance in the form of meat. I sawed and chewed each bit with satisfaction, not wanting it to leave my mouth.

When I took leave of my repose in the dingy little cafe, I made my way to the park to finish my philosophical treatise. I decided against finishing the pages I had started when I was hungry and opted instead to write a new piece on the joys of meat. The words came flowing down my arm onto the paper. All I had to to was keep writing them down.