Tuesday April 12th, 2016

The exercise:

Write something that has to do with: what's in a name?

This is my second scheduled post, intended to cover my time away from the blog for the birth of my second son. Hopefully that happened yesterday, but maybe early today? Who knows.

I'm writing this on the evening of March 22nd. As of this moment we have yet to settle on a name for our second boy, though we do have several options that we like. We're planning on waiting to meet him before we name him, just as we did with Max.

Speaking of Max...

Mine:

Presented, without comment, a list of names that Max has suggested for his little brother:

Max
Natalie
Fireplace
Doopitiblablablah
I may not have gotten the spelling right on that one.
Wait, does that count as a comment?
Anyway, carrying on.
Straw
Leaf
Emerysn
Amersyn (Spelled Mop. Yes, I asked. He was insistent that he wasn't saying Emersyn.)
Okay, pretty sure that definitely counts as a comment. I'm out of here.

There have been others but I can't remember them right now. Mostly he's been stuck on Max though.

And although we have allowed him a vote... I'm fairly certain we will not be going with any of the above.

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with an update on how things went. And pictures.

And a name.

3 comments:

morganna said...

Jonny
History, family, expectations
The weight of history,
Family expectations
Have I mentioned my father has disowned me for failing to live up to expectations and responsibilities of the family name?

No, actually, I don't believe there is anything in a name. It is what you make of it. Family history, expectations, the weight of the family tree.

I have disgraced the family name, says my father. Expectations, family history, the weight ...

Splash.

===========
Reporter
Jonathan Edgerton Spilkington III jumped off the Oak Bridge last night. He was depressed following his father disowning him. His father disowned him upon discovering that he was playing music in a pub band and living with another man.

===========
Kelly
I loved him. How was our love disgraceful? How could his father's respect mean that much to him? I loved him. Didn't that mean anything to him?

===========
Jonathan
If I could, I'd tell you, Kelly. But it's too late now. I couldn't take the disappointment any more. I see that your love was huge enough for both of us, but I couldn't see that then. Before the splash. I'm sorry. It's too late now.

Greg said...

@Morganna: I like how the different voices all contribute to the tale without having the opportunity to really talk to each other: I come away knowing what's happened but to everyone else there are unanswered questions. It sets up a nice tension between worlds, which I really enjoyed. The first part, that I thought was going to be a poem initially, is a beautiful expositon of Jonny's mind before he jumps.

@Marc: So... what was wrong with Fireplace in the end? Apart from the fact that it doesn't begin with the letter 'M' obviously. I think Max was inspired there, and you should definitely tell Miles, when he's older, that Fireplace was a suggested name for him :)

What's in a name?
The substitute teacher was wearing a cream cardigan that looked like it had been washed on too hot a setting. The buttons stretched across her chest, and that was decidedly flat, and the pockets were so high up they were practically under her armpits. Her blouse had stains which the cardigan failed to hide, and her skirt looked like it had been slept in last night. Her shoes were missing completely, and her socks had so many holes in that it wouldn't be unreasonable to call them fishnet stockings. An unlit cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth, and her yellow-stained fingers gripped a tumbler of water like it was the second whisky of the evening.
"Why are you all called Stephanie?" she said, her voice grating like the lid of a sarcophagus being pushed back by the mummy inside. The register in front of her listed eighteen children, all of whom apparantly had the same name. No-one answered, so the substitute sighed. "Stephanie?"
"Yes miss," said a boy at the front, his face perfectly serious. The substitute eyed him for several seconds and then convulsively downed the contents of the tumbler. Her eyes watered – it wasn't water in the glass after all – and then she coughed once.
"Thanks," she said, and ticked all the names on her list. She dropped the register in the bin, trying hard to focus, and stood up. A breeze tainted by the smell of old sweat, half-metabolised alcohol, and vinegar from a poultice in a delicate area drifted across the room. "Right, health education. I'm Miss Fitness, and I'm here to teach you how to look after your bodies."
A single hand raised from the middle of the class. The substitute rubbed her eyes hard and squinted, and decided that it was just the one hand. "Stephanie?"
"Miss Snippet is going to kill you," said the child

Marc said...

Morganna - lovely take on the prompt, I really like where you went with it. Especially the three different concluding viewpoints on the opening events. Poor Kelly :(

Greg - oh, I'll definitely tell him. Likely as soon as he's old enough to understand :)

I would not want to be a substitute for Miss Snippet's class... but I think especially not health education. Great descriptions in this one, as usual.