The garden he lived in was full of wildflowers. Of course, to him, all flowers were wild, since he hadn't learned the name of a single one. It had always seemed silly to him before, to name the unnameable. Like, maybe you call it a rose, but maybe it's mother called it something else entirely, so how do you know? He'd explain this logic to his grandmother time and again, not only because she was the one who cared about such a silly thing as flowers, but because she was the only one who ever listened to him. And yet, she'd always found it faulty, she'd always told him that it didn't matter what the rose's mother called it, since people couldn't know that. So, people had given it a new name, filled with love. And now, as the boy wandered the alleys and listened to the pebbles crunch underfoot, he wished he would've listened. He wishes he knew the name of the flowers, so that he'd have someone to talk to, someone to help him pass the time. But he has nobody to talk to and he's weary of giving the flowers yet another name. What is given too many names eventually becomes nameless, the boy knows, and he would not want to incur such a terrible curse on some poor flower. Not when he knows all too well what it means to be without a name. He wasn't always like this. There was a time when the boy had known his own name, when he'd heard it spoken, or called, sometimes in anger, but mostly just with love. Probably like the mother rose calls the baby rose by its true name, he imagines. But he never said his own name, not enough to count. He said it was pointless, he never called himself out and always, upon addressing the boy in the mirror, he did not use a name. To the boy, he was always himself.
The boy made the mistake of thinking he did not need a name, and so, that's how he ended up here. For the Universe is not oblivious to our actions. On the contrary, it sits in the dark and watches carefully as we scuttle at its feet. And the Universe noticed, just as it notices all things, that there was one boy who did not appreciate his name. A boy who believed he did not need one, so the Universe decided to take it away. If the boy did not want it, then very well, he shall not have a name.
So, the next morning, the boy found himself here, in this garden which he wanders, always alone. And he found himself without a name. He did not notice it at first, because of course, he wasn't accustomed to using it. But once, as he sat by the murky waters at the very edge of the garden, he noticed, on the surface, a faraway duck, floating towards him. And he tried to get its attention. But when he attempted to speak his own name, he found himself unable, for it was not his anymore.
One day, as the boy sits on the edge of water – where the ducks have long disappeared – he hears a noise and knows exactly where it comes from. He has learned the garden by millimeter, by heart, by one solitary corner and then another. And this particular noise is coming from the third alley road, the one with gravel that's always soft to the soles of his feet. And he walks there, slowly, taking the soundless path to find the place. For the first time in a long miserable while, the boy feels fear, hot and burning, coursing through his veins. He feels alive. He feels like somebody again. But all the somebodyness in the world cannot prepare him for what he finds on the alley. There, in the soft gravel, with her legs splayed out before her and her head in her hands, sits alone a little girl, not much older than him and although the boy doesn't know this yet, she is nameless, too.