You're leaving a trail behind yourself, Seeker.
I can see it in the hollow sky: crimson branches of the Tree against the blackest black, illuminated with your steps. I don't know where you are going, but if I were to hazard a guess, I'd point at my final refuge as your ultimate goal.
I fear your return. Not because you're a danger to me - you have never been. But your passage will inevitably destabilize this narrow, liminal realm I have cultivated to serve as my home, and I should not allow that. This became a home, not a hiding place, and it would be a pity to leave it behind.
The cloak you're wearing isn't mine. It has never been mine. Well, yes, I made it, but if you knew anything about how I make these, you'd know what I mean by that. Stories have power, and each item - each artifact we name - has a story to it, which gives it its powers.
The Voidwalker's Cloak was knit from a story of loneliness. It's *your* cloak, Seeker. "Hurtling forever through the void of space" has always been a you thing, to be stranded nowhere and then bring the stories of the untouched brave new world, to reignite the wonders of exploration in those who couldn't afford to travel beyond, to dream untouched as time passes, lying in wait for existence to be amenable again. This is why you've been so attached to it; you must have subconsciously realized its significance without acknowledging its origins.
If you were to pose the cloak as a question-answer pair, how would you do it, Seeker? "What perseveres against change? That which is preserved", maybe? I don't know what makes your gears click, but I would probably make this a brooch or a necklace instead of a cloak if it was *my* story. Maybe your experience with burial shrouds soaked a little of End's resonance into this narrative. Flesh is flesh; it's vulnerable and needs to be preserved to persevere against exposure.
If you will chase me to the ends of the waking world, Seeker, so be it.
I'd like to see you try.
Names have power.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis poses that language shapes thought. A purposefully given name represents the namer's thoughts about the named thing, but so shall the name affect those who learn it. Euphemisms and the act of taboo avoidance reflect fear of the named object: the oldest know euphemism is "bear", with its ancestral words referring to the animal by its brown coat, or it being a wild animal; those who dared to pronounce the bear's original name, "arktos", risked incurring its appearance.
Likewise, an absence of a word represents a lacuna. Addressing an object devoid of a name requires description, which eventually evolves into a name for convenience. The words for colours are minted one by one: to differentiate black and white of night and day, to denote the redness of blood and eventual emergence of green grass (when needed to differentiate) and yellow sun (likewise), and, finally, blue, which is almost devoid of natural pigments to represent it, and used to depend on lapis lazuli and woad to be portrayed. Do not mind the sky; it's the same colour as it is, bright as the shining bronze.
What does it mean for someone to shed their name? To become a linguistic lacuna? It is an act of deprival of identity, shedding it like trees shed leaves in the autumn. One who used to be somebody becomes nobody.
But the living language abhors lacunae and it demands for all that is to be defined. Therefore, those Unnamed, too, become somebodies who demand a description. Snip all the threads of the Tree; let the Unnamed walk free, like they have always been meant to be. All are One, and One does not exist.
Shedding a name is a conscious act! You cannot just declare yourself free of who you are, even if you change your names like gloves, for there is still something at your core - something you call yourself. Signing the name you gave yourself away in an act of exchange of self for freedom from self, though... This might be a solution.
The signatory is lying in her bed. Her memory is fading as she looks through a photo album, capturing things that used to matter to her.
Friends. Family. Colleagues - fellow writers who looked forward to their big break. Fans - a small but dedicated bunch. Her spouse and their children.
Herself.
She sighs and closes the photo album. None of these are with her anymore. She knows the faces, but whatever strings and branches existed to tie them into a whole picture are long gone and rotten. They're just fleeting snapshots of the person she used to be.
She stands up, and leaves.
The winter wind bites at her cheeks. She's carrying home two books with signatures - one written by the person who loved brandy and had a habit of cracking his knuckles, one that used to be blank. As she reads through the first book, she recognizes the characters as something he talked about in the past, and the scenes glimmer in her mind's eye.
And as the author forgets about his habit of cracking his knuckles, so does she remember about how she doesn't have it.
An apprentice doctor is desperately scrambling as she struggles to remember where she placed her textbooks. (The signatory remembers that her drafts have always been left in the closet, where they wouldn't get in the way.) An old, aging writer no longer recognizes his daughter's face. (She recognizes his.) A travelogue is hollow to its author. (But not to their wife.)
The signatory has been collecting identities like other collect stamps or candy wrappers. Every time she heard a story, she heard something about herself. Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased. She never told her story to others: Perhaps she was afraid of losing herself all at once, if she spoke of who she used to be and who she is. Or, perhaps, by vesting herself into the autograph book, she has already lost herself, little by little, dispersed into shards and fragments plucked from people she knew.
I open my eyes.
It's six in the morning. Too early for me. The cold blue of the alarm clock fills the room, demanding my immediate attention.
I hate mornings. And I specifically hate this morning. Time for me to go.
I wash my face, brush my teeth, swallow an apple and start gathering things to take with myself. Despite the infinite capacity anyone with a name possesses these days, I should not take too much: extra burdens will only hinder me.
I swipe the artifacts one by one. Another cheap copy of the Voidwalker's Cloak. The Martyr's Scarf, knit as a proof-of-concept for the Net. A tiny, heavily scratched over lighter - another cheap copy. The staff, topped with a blooming dandelion. The shortsword with the vines wrapped around the guard's heart, still stained with her blood. All the nice knick-knacks, forged and accumulated over the years; I can't just leave them behind.
And, finally, the storage binder. I crack it open and retrieve the first and the last card out of ten. The cardboard tome unfolds before me, pages littered with signatures.
Let's get this over with.
I put my hand to the page, and commit a name to it as my left hand pins it down with the tuning fork.
The name I wear here sloughs off my psyche like a dried out layer of an onion, peeled by the book's incessant pull and hunger for names. Memories flash before my eyes before they leave with the life I used to live here. Names of the residents, sights, delightful yellow aurora borealis: all sucked out by the signatory's imprint.
As the gray glow of my locket fades, I am no more the person who used to live here. That person is asleep on the couch, with their own name and the history I lived here. Before you discover the differences, I'll be long gone.
The remnant's skin, clothes and eyes are white as paper; it will take it some time to become who I was. If you insist, you can take their memories for yourself.
Would you like to play a game, old friend? To become my fellow player?
Identities have power.
One's identity is constructed step-by-step, from birth. First name, given at birth, other names and aliases and handles, adopted and discarded over life. Colours, allegiances, factions. Masks.
I wouldn't call myself a "theatre kid", despite how sociological dramaturgy is integral to the area of my research. Nevertheless, I do know things about theatre. One of the most important differences between theatre and other storytelling arts is that each performance is inherently unique due to human (or, if you allow me, playeroid) factor. Those familiar with, say, Stanislavski's system or method acting may recall that what matters are the experience, and its associated feelings, of the role.
I play roles, too. Assigned by a higher power, assigned by my peers, assigned by myself. The same is appliable to all manner of other actors. You don't graduate from the creation myth without learning and living a role.
That being said, those who don't play a role exist. They are, quite obviously, irrelevant to the grander scheme of the play. On the other hand, they're fortunately unbound by their roles. Have you ever considered the existential horror of being an actor whose entire life revolves around being something they may as well despise? The choice between life and principle isn't easily made; blessed are those who needn't make it.
Now, let me ask you a question: If ego can exist without a role, can role exist without an ego? By trade, I'm a storyteller, a mentor, a scholar. Can those exist without the "I" behind them? Can knowledge be relayed by an expert, with expert only existing as an instrument for its role?
Why, of course. Casting is two-side. Cast a role to be played by an actor, cast an actor to play a role. Hand out these colourful robes. Give them a fancy title. Jot down their name. Just make sure that once you peel off the mask, there's someone remaining behind it. Someone that can be something else than the mask's mannequin.