A colleague afar.
When my breasts started to show,
he sent old pictures
of trying to find herself.
Rest in peace, Arianna.
We lived a quarter of the world apart and there was a significant age difference as well. We seemed to click, though, and had fun each of the several times we met over the years, mostly in conferences where in addition to the scholarly stuff we had a few beers, did sightseeing, and talked about life in general. He was well liked and respected in the academic field we shared, but I suspect I might be the only one alive who knew her name.
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This story is 106 words long.
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In all the world
I am sorry for your loss, Athena. In all the world, you were the one who could give Arianna her name. What a blessing that must have been to her.
— Emma
Not quite
She was the one who gave me her name, along with a couple of pictures from when she had made an effort to see how she'd have looked if only. We both agreed the short answer to that was 'cute', but for various reasons that I still cannot deny she stayed strictly in the closet, and we too had just this one e-mail chat about it. Her wife knew at least some of it.
Imprecise
I wasn’t very accurate there. I didn’t mean that you gave her the name, in the sense of a parent naming a child at birth. But I am a firm believer in the idea that names have power, and it is especially true for our community. When someone calls me “Emma,” they are seeing a truth most people miss, and choosing to recognize it. Maybe even honor it. To me, it feels like a gift — something special that they have given to me. And that was the gift that you gave to your friend.
— Emma
Yes
Being told the name was very much a gift, and I do think that remembering it is another gift, or perhaps rather a service, that I can give her in return. There are quite a few cultures, including ours, that consider keeping the memory of a person's name as a major part of their survival after death. While 'his' survival in this sense not in danger hers is worth protecting too, even if it's just in my personal e-mail archive and this poem that doesn't connect the very private woman to the much more widely known role she chose to play.