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The Naming

Story 56

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Somebody has to be first start with the boy whose coat has a sleeve inside out call him Emin no Emin is a name for someone who gets older call him Tomas with the coin warm in his fist and the printed cake Tomas has a father in it this one has a mother and a bill call him Aron leave him before the eighth candle

The man on the hill flat call him Yusuf he would hate that call him Ilya who swims until his shoulders burn and watches the cars all night twelve seconds of lit glass and lit glass he knows why she takes the stairs now and has changed nothing call him Petar

The mother in the third bed call her Nadia no Nadia is a name for a woman who wins something call her Roza no Roza is my grandmother call her the third bed let the file be angry call her Halide with the word she has not spent sitting in the boy like a stone in fruit

The clerk who read his life off a tray call him Josef and Josef stays he signed his own

The cat has no name

Put the cat at the end

The one who brings a chair in one motion call him Marek a hook a number a manual call him Selim straightening a chair on a day that is not his shift call him nothing let him say goodnight through doors

The woman with the ledger one shoulder higher her mouth open at night call her Dora call her Sabine no Dora leave her finger beside the signature line

The one carrying vinyl every fourteenth call her Lena and she plays for the hosted Lena is a name for someone expected somewhere she is expected nowhere call her the crate call her the fourteenth

The corrector filing granite against plate call her Klara and she has a row she will not walk Klara is too clean for a woman who marks a stone corresponding twice call her Ruth the ninth along

The Secretary leave her alone the joke is hers naming her would tell the room

The one paid to say three hundred call her Mira she has said this already call her Anka no Anka waits put her breath back before hundred I cannot name her after it

The one who sat the hour with the boxes call her Nesrin she could not read it if I wrote it down call her Dilek no Dilek reads her own form call her the seventh statement

The one who said her hands were wet call her Vesna no Vesna is met at a wedding call her the daughter call her back her mother has been saying the name in two parts

The one under the woman caught in the shroud call him Rauf he has a name already call him the stagehand he has swallowed the tooth Lida is her own name she will have to tell them where it hurts

The one who took the carrier and brought it back call her Suna the name is there already I am trying to put it on only one side of the page

The one with the ticket call him R-73 it is what he answers to five times in one day he pressed his thumb to prove he was there call him the wet pad the board has a field for that

The widow whose tear could not be removed without enlarging call her Emine no Emine is only one woman I have entered it and struck it and the paper is soft she is possibly the woman in the first hour possibly the hand that sends the voucher back three women or one the file has no field for that neither have I eleven years doing this

The one at the window seat who is not a person call it Ferit that took no time I am striking it the two fingers do that on their own I am leaving the strike legible

The one who said no and the one with his receipts flat call them nothing they have had enough of being written down

There are more than when I started and the page has not got any longer

And the cat

Gray in the market remembering for nothing playing back as a patch of clean sound

I have tried four times and the pen goes down every time

There is nothing to attach to