Corandcrank Umamu Today

"If I eat this," Umamu said, his voice like grinding stones, "I will have to give him ten years of my own animation. I will become a statue for a decade while he walks the surface. Are you asking me to die for a season so he may live?"

Umamu paused. For centuries, he had lived in the crank —the mechanical necessity of survival. He had forgotten the cor —the heart. He took the jar and unscrewed the lid. As the stilled time rushed into his lungs, his gears began to glow white-hot. Corandcrank Umamu

He felt the salt-wind of the pier he hadn't visited in an age. He felt the sting of cold water and the warmth of a midday sun. As his internal machinery slowed to a final, grinding halt, he saw a man emerge from the waves down at the harbor, gasping for air, ten years older but finally moving. "If I eat this," Umamu said, his voice