Origin of a Name (Solo)

A young man about his mid twenties dressed in a black suit his face emotionless as he stared at the coffin the old man inside the box was nothing but a bag of lifeless old bones. Master…you’re the only human I have found that ever deserved that honorific. You found me on the streets posing as a veteran of the war and out of the kindness of your heart and the sacrifice of your wealth you took me in and taught me what it meant to be human. The young man looked off into the sky as the sun cut a crimson ribbon across the sky.

[i]When you asked my name it had been so long since I had even spoken that I couldn’t remember, and even then you were kind enough to give the name of your own son…he was the magnificent one…he was the one that didn’t come home. He was the one that left a wife and son behind so that he could save them. All I have done in my life is lied about who I was, you were the one of the few who knew my secret and yet you still considered me an equal.[i] A tear rolled down the young man’s face as he watched body lowered into its final resting place.

Two women cried at the foot of the grave and the two next to it, but the young man just stood there and stared his face as emotional as the stones that marked the graves. Reading the stones to the left and right of the fresh grave he understood why the two women cried, one was his wife and the other his son gone before him to walk a different plane.

He waited for the gave to be filled before he finally walked to the stone in marking the fresh grave, placing a single black rose on the grave he turned the two women were watching him, the younger was the one to speak first. “I know you.” She choked out “You were in some of those old photos of grandfather’s he said you were a friend of dad’s from the war.”

The other woman blinked back the tears and whispered under her breath, “Impossible, you haven’t aged since that photo was taken.” Then a little more reassured she added, “You must be his son.”

In a calm voice the young man spoke, “No I assure you I am the same man, I am James Talog, and though I didn’t know your husband I was a friend of your father-in-law.” Handing them a card with only a number and an address he spoke one last time, “When you are over your grieving come to that address.”