Unnaming
The man, his name is Mick, or Mickey, or Michael, or Sir to some and Man to others, Son to his Mammy and Eejit to his wife. The woman, her name is Sonya. Mick and Sonya. Sonya and Michael. Her husband, his wife. Out.
Sonya calls him Micky, and he knows that there’s no “e” because of how she says it.
“Micky,” she says, her hand over his chest hair, over his stomach, over his heartbeating beating.
“Yes, love,” says the man, who likes the sound of “love”, of saying it, of whistling “l” between his tapping teeth. His wife, she doesn’t say, doesn’t say but grumbles, groans and bickers. His wife is half to him, and him to her is less than, too.
“Just so,” says Sonya, loving this and him and then a part of her has left and waits at home. Her man, her one-and-only, ain’t so much of that now, is he? Ask and she might say so, if you catch her right. Mick, Mickey, Michael, caught her, that night, right as rain and wind and sunny weather. Her hand caught in his, long time and longer. Sing me, said he, sing me straight, and Sonya did, then and now, and will too, will if he asks again.
When we’re named they tell us who we are and what and where and how, but re-naming, that’s our power. Sonya tilts to Sonne, she likes the song of that, and bits of sonnet, poems, though she’s not smart and she’s no brainbox. Mick is thinking something new, no hint of that, no hint of Ms and Ys and stuff of sorts.
“I’ll go for Stan,” he says to Sonne, she of the hands and fingers wandering.
“Tis fine,” says Sonne, “But won’t we clash, the S and S?”
“Yes,” says he, who, temporarily unnamed, we’ll move on from.
His wife, her husband. No, they don’t. They don’t have names, or faces. Or affairs. Too neat. The gods don’t make it so, however we might wish. The gods just watch, and laugh and stare at all our messes, that’s ourselves. The gods don’t bother naming, picking favourites. We’ll be so soon gone, they wouldn’t care. There’s more to come for them, and we are just small dusts.
By Tania Hershman
Tania Hershman (www.taniahershman.com) is a former science journalist originally from London. After 15 years in Jerusalem, she and her partner are relocating to Bristol. Commended by the judges of the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers, her first short story collection, The White Road and Other Stories (www.thewhiteroadandotherstories.com), is published by Salt Modern Fiction. Her short stories have been published in print and online, in publications including PANK magazine, Smokelong Quarterly, Drunk and Lonely Men, Eyeshot, Literary Fever, Riptide, Cafe Irreal, the Hiss Quarterly, Front&Centre, Vestal Review, and Transmission, and Riffing on Strings, an anthology of fiction inspired by String Theory. She has had three stories broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Tania is the winner of the Binnacle’s 2009 Ultra Short Competition and European regional winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Broadcasting Association’s short story competition. She is the founder and editor of The Short Review, (www.theshortreview.com), a site dedicated to reviewing short story collections and anthologies.
© 2009, Metazen. All rights reserved.
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