Hannibal

I walk through the open plains and tall grass of Missouri and find a city on the monstrous river.

It’s already fabelized (is that even a word? Spell check doesn’t think so. It is now) and romanticized and fictionalized, but still it draws me in.

Not for its lore. Twain established that long ago. Maybe for its nostalgia? My love of stories can be traced to Tom and Huck directly and I kick myself for losing a hundred-year-old first edition.

Even still, something else draws me.

It’s the reality. Hannibal sits on the river, home of the great author and site of a whitewashed fence story told so perfectly it’s almost part of the fabric of literature itself; sharing the same space as Homer’s Odyssey, Tolkien’s Fellowship, and King’s Dark Tower.

But the reality is not that fiction.

The reality is, in my world, The Pool has changed this sleepy city and its summertime lore. Transformed it into something free, and bustling, and thriving and… awful.

Three kingpins live in the three largest houses in the city. Two families ruling with iron fists, sharpened pencils, and the third with pleasure.

I walk through the streets of west Hannibal, and there are factories, mills, blacksmiths, and leathermen. Steam whistles scream, pipes clank, coal burns, and oil lamps light the way at night. It’s crowded, busy, loud, and moves with its own speed.

But it’s safe.

Police wear silver badges and twirl batons. They stay out of the way until they’re needed; until at once they become judge, jury, and executioner of justice. They’re monitored, sure, but not really.

As I walk, I head south a bit and find a tall brick wall, twice my height. It’s imposing but beautiful. Ornate at the top—angels, animals, children playing carved from marble dotted every 20 feet. Between them, crafted into the wall itself, is an arrow that points in the same direction alongside a single word:

<—

Gate

If I had been walking on the east side of the gate, the arrow would be pointed the other direction. These, to assure everyone can find their way in.

The gate is massive, and there is a small hut with 3 men playing dominoes. A sign says:

Registrar Building

Single-use alias required

Multiuse alias available at town center

Multiuse alias must provide stamped documentation

Welcome to freedom

The men either don’t notice me, don’t care, or I don’t exist to them and it doesn’t matter. The gate is barred and will not open. Massive clockwork gears sit at the top and bottom of the outermost corners of each gate door. Huge brass pipes run to them.

I continue through the town, block after block of crisscrossing dirt roads, apartments and duplexes, quadplexes packed in with pipes twisting and angling up walls and across roofs, each one seemingly put in place ad hoc, out of necessity as opposed to plan.

A great bridge appears clawing its way across the mighty Mississippi River. Its towers rise like gothic cathedrals, and great chains sag beneath their own weight, holding the beast above the river. Missing cobblestones reveal the wood base; pipes flowed to burning lights, each with a small valve marked “open/close.”

In the center of the bridge there is an archway with a small building atop it. A balcony wraps around it entirely, with a curving stairwell leading up on each side, one flowing from the east, the other from the west.

Letters make it obvious.

Stephanie’s Mid-Way Bakery

Smoke rises from a stack on its roof and a middle-aged woman directs four other women who look astonishingly like her, as they knead dough, put this in or take that out of the oven.

A line is forming on each side of the bridge funneling to a window that says “order.”

People mill around and talk, laugh, and discuss near a second window labeled “pickup.”

Some wear denim pants and white shirts, a few sport suspenders or heavy work boots.

Still others sport grey, navy, brown, and tan perfectly pressed cotton pants and jackets. Their boots shine in the morning sun.

Everyone waits in the same line. First come, first serve.

On the other side of the arch/bakery gateway, the cobbles change from moss-covered and brown/red to a spotless white. A few have golden or black speckles. None are missing, not even loose.

The roads are the same, clean and white, speckled marble and granite laid with precision and skill by someone, or many someones, who most likely did not live on this side of the bridge.

The houses had pillars on the porches holding up lofts and balconies on the upper floors. Beautiful yards with fences, and one, the largest, sitting on a small hill slightly above the rest, had a fountain.

The business areas, clean and perfect, have pipes of brilliant shiny gold, running so perfectly you forget they are there, until a gleam of sun catches your eye.

I stop and take in the sight. Two completely different worlds within one city.

Everyone in line for the same bread.