NAMELESS

Nameless is called Nameless, because he is as such. When Nameless was born, it had been the hottest September in Lowetown’s history. His mother and myself, we had gotten together three years prior, and decided around Christmas one year to try and extend the family.

We hadn’t much need for a child before. We were happy. I would come home after work; my wife would be prepared for my arrival, waiting for me at the door as I had expected her to be. Food would be ready, somethin’ simple like chicken with stuffin’ or chicken with gravy, or chicken livers with roast chicken. The living room would be cozy and my big screen TV with its paper hardwood finish turned to my favorite channel. Life was good then. We rarely mentioned having kids, as both of us found pleasure in our simple lifestyle – the reservation from the idiots roaming around in the world, caught up in some preprogrammed idea that it was better to grow old with kids who went to college, and then their kids running around. It just wasn’t important to me and my sweetheart. And then one winter, when it was cold outside, and snow covered the roads so I wasn’t forced to work, a few days after New Years, before the Christmas tree was taken down and everyone still felt festive, my wife and I had a few drinks and made the rash decision to try and have a child. A mistake that would change everything, forever, on every level.

Nameless came into this world silent and pale pink, blue and green veins around his temples, and with a look of apathy. A quiet burden. He had no teeth, and looked around the hospital room once or twice, then closed his eyes. The doctors poked and prodded at him, and he made sounds, but never cried.

My wife had spent nineteen hours in labor, and we had refused to have that ceasar section – or whatever it was called – for most of the time. But they said she was growing too swollen, or her p-thingy was detached or somethin, but still, natural is better, no need for all this new technology interfering with what people have done for hundred of thousands of years. Anyway, Nameless had caused some complication in my sweetheart, and after an entire day of struggling, we agreed to the doctor’s orders. Nameless came into my world, seven pounds of human, but when he arrived, he took my baby’s life.

She lied there, struggling after they took him from‘er stomach. Sweat was beading up around her hairline, dark sunken circles dragged her eyes deep in to her pretty face that once held so much life. She lied there for a moment more, looked away from that kid of ours, let out a sigh, closed her eyes and she was gone. My sweetie was a beautiful woman, who pushed and pushed for a day, and at the end, this little thing took my baby’s life.

My wife and I didn’t need all these flashy things that the world threw into peoples lives, besides my television of course. We were intelligent, but there isn’t much need for too much knowledge, it just’ll make ya crazy in the end. She was a darling though, and I always remember what she said in May, right before she had the baby. “My lovey, we don’t have to name this thing inside me right? I think if you name somethin’, it just dies. Look at our gold fish and that cat we had.”

Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t bad at keepin’ things alive, I mean, I still got this child around… And so we joked around the idea, but never gave it any more serious thought. When my baby left to go the heavens and meet our maker, I decided to leave the child without a name, but the birth certificate demanded some sort of way to identify him, so I wrote in “nameless.” They capitalized the N by them damn selves.

Nameless has been around for nineteen years now. I can’t say I love him; he took away the thing I cherish the most, what I would consider the only thing I could love, my person. I guess he ain’t that bad. He does some cool things every once in a while, but is truly more of a burden than a blessing. He is a lot like me, always keeping to himself, not associating with the nimrods, the materialistic and the artsy.

But I cannot understand him, like he has some dream beyond this world. He’s always talking about some zen chinky nonsense, somethin’ those japs and gooks like. Nameless stays quiet, sits in his room a lot and reads stuff. Stuff like enlightening the brain or what not, philosophy and magic dragons or something. I wish he’d go play a video game, or sports or something. Watch TV at least. But instead, he sits around, reading those damn books, dreaming about a world where people think instead of work and live. Hippie nonsense. Nameless’s Hippie Nonsense.