*working title*

¶Understand, now, here before the world gets cold, frigid with mighty fears and liquid sunlight, that I have no real means to explain myself. It’s my duty to put these sentences out into the world, paging the few who must hear this message. I have to have these words in the world, for all to see, but none to comprehend, until the day when the knots are untied, and the light can run free, flowing like melted stone, illuminating the page and sparking a truth. It’s simply my hope that the truth will be discovered before the world becomes a necropolis.

¶The function of a name is terrifying, yet a nearly universal presence. It telegraphs who we are to everyone who meets us. It’s the first thing to be learned about someone, bringing them from a face you couldn’t recall if you tried, to an acquaintance who may hold you accountable, should an altercation break out at the dinner party you’re attending. And yet, they are so pervasive. Imagine meeting someone without a name. Imagine the dread you’d feel upon a person so brusque, so bold as to announce “I have no name. I wasn’t born with one, and I will never put one on myself.” They’d be someone to remember. We feel no surprise at meeting animals without names. A wild pigeon with a name is like a toxicologist eating soup. You may feel surprise at first, expecting something more; a slipped hand and the toxins enter the scientist’s blood, but there’s no real reason to think that way. The same can be said of a pigeon named B____.

¶It’s a fine thing, to have a name. I had one, once. I walked the world with my identity. I could go anywhere, and say my name to everyone I came across. “Hello P____. I’m XXXXX. It’s very good to meet you.” They’d typically cold-shoulder me, not taking any care to show me the knowledges they all owned, or the affection in their hearts. They’d return to their banal times, toiling like they had been moments before, yet fractured and disturbed. They’d end up puzzling for days about how I knew their names. “Where had I met that person before?” they’d ask themselves, believing that they had, not for a second questioning if they had. “Of course I had,” they’d think. “Of course I had, or he wouldn’t know my name.”

¶A man, caked in fog, walks out over the lake on the pier. He sees a small boat, passing the line of brush and oak trees on the far shore. The stars shimmer down, broken by the thin lines of cloud that wisp by. A perfect night for fishing. The boat’s reflection warbles in the water, the same way the man’s tears crinkle his vision.

¶“When will my daughter come back,” he says to himself. He asks aloud, not noticing the other man just down the pier, a few feet behind him. “When will what?” the man asks. This startles the first man. He gawks and blinks the tears away, dripping a few onto his tweed. “I’m sorry old man, I hadn’t seen you,” he says.

¶The other man is clearly much older. His hair is dark and scraggly like a burnt matchstick, and his nose is round and red like an unused one. His ears are fanned out like coral, but the eardrums must be made of leather. “What? I can’t hear you,” he says.

¶The young, distracted man shakes his head and looks back over the water. “I didn’t say anything,” he says, his voice raised to near a shout. “Not to you,” he murmurs to himself. He sighs and stares at the boat. It hurries on towards the trees in the back of the lake, heading nowhere. The two passengers’ mumble together inaudibly, making an echo skirting across the water. A jingle of keys carries along with their v(o)ices.

¶The boat and sound is covered by another, rumbling of an engine, growling in the dark. A much bigger boat, a schooner, comes grinding its way through the water, throwing laps of dark liquid over the feet of both men. The small boat far away must be struggling, though it has been eaten in the parallax of the grander. The young man stomps the water out of his boots, and the old man grunts like a goblin.

¶“See, the celebrities and Rolex-wearing type make no effort to learn anyone’s names. If they visit an orphanage, they do it for the cameras. If they talk to a homeless man, they give him money, ask him if he has any drugs (because he surely doesn’t need them), and forget to take down his name, phone number, [social security], ‘cause god knows they want that. They care about their image, nothing more. They seek that immediate endowment of love that nobody really deserves. That’s why I sicken myself with liquor and tap-dance away the night, because even if that won’t get me noticed further than the town drunkard, at least that way I know I’ll die happier than [any of them will].”

¶“This way it’s not a [return of power. The maker doesn’t lose] control of his [/her] creation. They [make the thing, they sell the thing, and it’s done.] It’s all done. The [technology is set, we don’t have to {worry} about that]. Luckily, printing and [other means of delivery such as blogs, radio, television, {magazines}, advertisements, and the internet in general] isn’t a big deal either, since [nobody {listens [to {that [shit {anyway}]}]}].