The Caveman
Copyright© 2016 by Colin Barrett
Chapter 25
I will not be Hugo. I will be another name with many parts, Linda says. She tells me I must learn this name and some other things as well.
When she explains I am not pleased. I do not wish to pretend to be another person. But she says it must be this way in order for me to have the ID that is so important.
In this place—in this time, I think again—it seems there are many people whose work it is to know each person from the time the person is born. She says that all this knowledge is recorded by symbols so that all who understand the symbols may share it.
Because I was not born in a time when that was recorded I cannot be myself, I must take the name of one whose birth is known. And because there can be only one of each name, the person whose name I take must be dead but his death must not be known to those who keep the records. The man whose name she tells me is such a one, she says, Danny has found this name.
I think of all the people I saw on the day Linda took me to what she calls store, where we obtain the clothing that I wear and the food. It is beyond what I can understand that each one of these people is known to all in this way.
Well, I was named Ougo at my birth. Now I am Hugo. I suppose I can be another name yet if that is what is needed.
But “Hugo” has much meaning to me, it is what Linda says. I ask can she still call me by that name.
“Yes, if you like,” she says, smiling. “It can be our name, just between us. But you’ll have to be Jim, or Jimmy, to other people, it’s going to get too complicated and too suspicious otherwise.”
I do not care what name others speak if I can be Hugo with her.
Linda spends much time in the next two days before what she says is computer on her table. I see her take up a drawing stylus that makes marks on paper of itself and move her hand rapidly to make the same marks many times. Finally she is satisfied.
Then she goes back to computer and says “shit!” loudly. I understand that she is displeased. She shows me the image before her and tries to explain.
“The goddamn signature, the end of it, runs right across the state seal,” she says. I do not understand, but she shows me what she tries to do. “If I replace it, it’ll show,” she says, and I see that if she uses the image of the drawing she has done instead of the image that is already there, a part of what is behind will be hidden.
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