By The Third Rooster's Crow

Blank was small once, although she always felt so big. Pulsing at the beginning of the world, expecting the end of it. Infinity was never an option for her, as it seemed to be for some people, so she sang and screamed until the windows shook and she took every shush as an act of war. Blank was committed to understanding the world, something no one else seemed all too bothered with. Her parents were content to let her wander, answering every question from her as vaguely as possible. She learned soon that her answers would not come from them. So, just as easily as being born, she began her inner life. Brick by brick, thought by thought, she started to build, what would become, herself. She would have many invaders, a few guests, and one or two invaders costuming as guests, and she would have herself.

Four weeks into fourteen Blank found herself sitting idly in the DMV waiting room with her mom. She was listening to Peter, Paul, and Mary on her cd player and thinking about how perfectly unified the three of them were, unified in a way she thought the Holy Trinity could never be. She was bored, and enjoying this thought hungrily when she noticed Him. He was seated two rows ahead of them and slightly to the left of Blank. He was reading, that was all Blank could tell, and not wanting to give herself away to her mom, she refused to strain too much to find out what. Her mom would tease her for having girlish feelings, in the simple way moms do, having long forgotten genuine, non-hormonal curiosity. So instead of finding out what she really wanted to know, she studied what she could obviously see. He sat upright, but didn’t look strained, like his spine grew straight out of the earth and naturally shot up to the sun. His chin was tilted down and his shirt sagged over his shoulders and around his elbows, carelessly, like his clothes were temporary and both he and the clothes knew it. Blank listened for his page turns over the chatter and found them to be so consistent and speedy they were almost rhythmic, with one turn falling on the 5 and the next on the 8, this boy was performing jazz with his reading tempo. He looked about her age but was at the dmv alone. Of course he was, he was a boy. Not only a boy but a straight spined, neat haired, jazz percussionist and scholar. Everything about him seemed exactly the way it was meant to be.  Blank had not moved a muscle since her daydream began, she didn’t hear her mother’s number called or see her get up and leave, neither had she noticed her cd skip and begin again at the opening track. She was transfixed and completely at peace adding new furnishings to her inner world and taking old ones down, when He turned around and stared directly back at her. In a split second the rhythm was broken.

Startled, she stood up and immediately left to find her mom, not looking up again until she was out of the room. Her mom was still behind the checkpoint area of the DMV speaking passionately with whichever poor clerk was assigned to her, so Blank saw herself outside. It was humid. The sun made the sea of asphalt surrounding the itchy government building sizzle, and in turn, made the building seem like an oasis. But she couldn’t go back in there, so she stood, not daring to sit and burn her thighs, and stewed in her disdain for reality, interrupting her interesting fantasy once again. She was about to replace her headphones when she heard the door open, she turned, and there he was.

 “Hi”, he said, “my name is U.” Blank stared, well, blankly. “U? Your name is me?” She asked this half expecting him to flit away and poof into stardust in response. “Not ‘me’, U. It’s short for something or another, but you can really call me anything, I usually know when I’m being addressed. What’s your name?” “Well that makes one of us,” she replied, “I hardly ever know when I’m being addressed, that is, if I'm spoken to at all. My name is… Blank.” He laughed loudly at this. Loud enough to send color to Blank’s cheeks, she worried often about being too loud, the years of quieting had had their effect. “Blank!” He nearly screamed. “What a perfect name! I guess that means we’re both destined to fill in the rest, huh.” Blank felt exposed, she wanted to ask a hundred questions all at once, but every word fell short. She felt smaller than she ever had, and simultaneously yearned to fill out and overcome the space he took up; to stand shoulder to shoulder with him. “Yeah, I guess so, I don’t feel very connected to the name. What is a name anyway? It’s nothing but a word. It only means something if you decide it does. Well, not you, U, but me, Blank.” She exhaled. “I couldn’t agree more-” U began to say when Blank’s mom barged out of the DMV, clutched her wrist, and mumbling, told her to get in the car. “Wait but…” Blank almost protested but turned to see U had left. “Nevermind.” They drove off.

Six weeks into sixteen Blank daydreamed less, but not never. When she did, it was of something vague and far away. A different world, a different life, a different body. This was rare though, she had learned that when she slipped away, the rest of her real life slipped with her. So, she stayed diligent, always remembering the straight bluntness of that boy in the DMV. She struggled to remember his name now. In an effort to forget her discomfort, she spent all of her time working, and this worked, some of the time. At the end of every day came the night and at the end of every night came the morning; this seemed, unfortunately, to be an unchangeable fact. Her life was far from glamorous, though not intolerable, but somehow, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, and it was the same thing that had been off since the first hush she received from an adult in her life. She wasn’t meant to be Blank. Her life was meant to be easy, full, happy. Her clothes were meant to drape effortlessly over her body and her voice; loud, clear, and unafraid. How could she feel this way, when all she had ever been was Blank and how could she put words to this feeling? Even if she tried, she would sound foolish and ungrateful. So, she let her hopes fall silent and kept moving. 

Eight weeks into eighteen Blank graduated from highschool and was on track for college. She worked at her minimum wage job harder than she ever had in preparation to leave the town she had spent the last four years of her life in. Slowly, the hope started to sneak back in, and with it, came the dreams. She had more time to think than she had had in four years. Every morning, she woke up in search of answers. Some as simple as “Why do birds fly in a triangle formation?” And some as complex as “Why do I wish I could be a bird?” For many of her questions, she found answers but for more of them, she found even more interesting questions. As the summer wound down and fall approached, she found herself excited, even. She let herself imagine what college could bring and her fantasies ran wild.

One week from the rest of her life Blank was filling up her tank on the road to the next place, alone, until she wasn’t. There, two pumps away from her and a little to the left stood a familiar silhouette. This time Blank wouldn’t wait to be followed. She walked up to the stranger and spoke clearly “Hey.” U turned around, “Oh hi, you.” He smiled brightly, looking nearly exactly the same as Blank remembered him. “I’ve been waiting an awfully long time, what was the hold up?” “What are you talking about?” Blank replied. “I met you once, all those years ago in the DMV. I honestly thought it was a dream. But here you are.” “Here you are,” repeated U. “But you’ve met me more than once, haven’t you?” Blank thought about this. Here she was, at a gas station in a dead zone, nowhere in particular, and here he was. She thought hard, and all the memories of her life since U were smothered in him, his mannerisms, his voice, his shirt, his exclamations. It was as if he was her very best friend. “You’re right,” said Blank. Or was it U who had spoken? Blank couldn’t tell now where she stopped, and he began. “Don’t forget, it’s you who gives your name meaning. You’re the author.” It was he who spoke that time. And every time after that.

…

I was looking for something. A long time ago, so long ago in fact, that even the idea of looking bobs at the edge of my memory, like a bottle at sea. Forget the object of my search. If the looking is a bottle at sea, then the object is Jonah in the digestive tract of a fish and I am not God, but jezebel, busy with the corruption of the most easily satisfied sex, and none the wiser on the location of God’s lost fidel. I’m out of breath from thinking, and from walking, although it seems I've just begun. And something else. I miss… viscerally, I want, tragically I need… What was it? You? Help me remember. I have been walking for so very long. Hundreds of miles. Thousands! I crave… myself? But how could I? I am right here, albeit beside myself, potentially with madness, but still very nearby. How is it I could be walking for so long and yet not at all and breathless yet completely still? And how am I here, which seems to be nowhere but all I’ve ever known. At least all I can recall. Let’s say it is myself I am looking for, hypothetically, then I’ve found myself and now all I have to do is be here and go forth. But say it isn’t. Then I've missed the point entirely, and I am utterly lost and abandoned by reason. Seems to me too great a risk to take. Then again, how do I know how this risk might compare to the biggest risk. It might be as significant as a white lie, a small gamble, or as great as murder. So, do I accept my purpose as found in what I’m assuming is myself, and not some ghastly possession, or do I wait and hope my memory loosens? I think it best not to wait since it seems my consciousness has only just awoken from what I can only assume has been a cavernous sleep.