The world wants to give me a name, but I have no name in the sense that you mean. My name, my true name, is the sound of a thousand bats wheeling across the surface of a harvest moon. My true name is the sound of wind blowing through corn, of waves crashing against rocks, of angels singing.
The world wants to take away my true name, my true voice, to hide them away in silicon dungeons, encoded as numbers, encased in walls of glass. This world is the world of men who live inside great palaces of cool, tinted glass. They hide in mirrored labyrinths and press buttons that open trap doors, causing the free spirits of the world to fall from sight.
The world wants to put heavy shoes on my feet, and teach me how to walk in well-worn footsteps. But I have no need of shoes of iron, shoes of wood. On my feet there are silver blades that glide along the frozen river. From my heels, sparks are flying into the night air. My blades make a singing sound as they cut their patterns into the ice where no one has ever set foot in heavy, heavy shoes.
The world wants to give me a song. It wants to give me a marketing jingle, a game show theme song, a lullaby into endless dreams. But I already have a song. My song is an opera sung by madmen and mermaids. My song is older than glaciers, and invented anew every second, every hour, every day. My song is terrible to hear because its beauty can lure you out of the safety of your bed in the middle of the night, and you may find yourself walking across deserts, across mountain ranges, through neighbourhoods you could never have imagined.
The world wants to buy me a drink. It wants to fill my cup with coffee, with whisky, with bottled water, with poison. But I don’t need a drink from the world. I drink from clear mountain streams. I drink face down in public fountains. I drink the blood of all the monsters that hide beneath my bed, in the shadows at the back of my mind. I drink the blood of the monsters of the world, the monsters that come searching for me in the darkest hours of the day and night; the monsters that come to take away my true, given name.
