Names
Sometimes he is Liam, and the butcher knows he will work hard and do a good job of it to gain a piece of meat for dinner, so he and his sister won't go to sleep hungry that night.
Sometimes he's Rabbit, and all the kids in a range of 3 miles know he's another stray like them - and that he's game for any dare they may come up with.
Sometimes he is John, the brat with a strange accent whose father beats him up whenever he fails to bring alcohol home at the end of the day - and occasionally a bartender takes pity on the poor kid and gives him a bottle for half the price, or for free if he's lucky.
Sometimes he is Red, and he's the only way to contact Scarred, the best informant in the underground. Those who need information come at night to find Red and make their requests for Scarred. They're careful with this kid, who is so unbelivably young but who will walk away with everything they had in their pockets and everything they knew about secret deals given half a chance, and they're careful to make sure they have something to pay him with. No one has ever seen Scarred, but those who failed to pay met a swift end.
Sometimes he is Dirk, and the prostitutes by now know better than to refuse his money. If there's one thing he doesn't lack, besides a silver tongue, is non-virginity. One so young, so young, what a shame. There are no ghosts in his eyes, but the lack of everything else makes up for it.
Sometimes he's Anton, and yet another old lady gives the poor orphan some money for him to buy bread to feed himself. Children with no relatives are such sad, pitiful creatures.
The name changes everytime the question is asked. He jumps easily from one identity to the other, shifts from name to name, creating people and personalities and stories within himself that will never quite go away since there is not a detail he can forget. At least he'll not make a fool of himself by forgetting who he is to whom and every detail of how his story will change accordingly.
He is Dirk and Richard and Philip and Rabbit and Dick and John and Liam and Jack.
And sometimes, the sun sets and no one is there, it's just him and whatever stray mutt he's sharing the makeshift shelter for the rain with, and he's just himself.
Taking off the worn cap he wears to cover the big, furry red ears on the top of his head, he leans over a pool on the ground to look at his reflection, green eye staring into green eye, blind blue eye staring into blind blue eye, and he wonders just who himself is.
