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"Name".
I had never heard this word until I was 17 years old. I overheard a conversation between my supervisor and an offworld Administratum inspector, who asked him what was the name of the magos in charge of the 3rd section of the 221th plasma reactor plant. Since birth people around me did not bear names, you did not refer to anyone if you were not a supervisor, but if you realy had to you refered to people by their registration number that was assigned to each and everyone at the birth factory along with their labor assignement.

For years I did not know the meaning of this word, I spent every minutes of the weekly 30 minutes rest to try and understand it. I had no clue what it could be, but it wouldn't get out of my mind. I tried to forget it when I realized it was a pointless endeavour, and that it started to make me feel in ways I had never felt, sadness it was I think, about my life. For some reason, it broke a kind of dream-like state, in wich I realized I was plunged for my entire life, wich was restricted to working at the factory. Every day I was woken up by the factory alarm in the barracks and was herded with the others to the same spot where I would action the same lever for hours on end until it was time to go to sleep again. The absence of recreation or bonds, the constant work and perpetual routine, it makes the mind go… blank.

I started to notice it in others as I was slowly waking up from this endless dream. It terrified me, I wished to go back to it, to be at peace once more, to forget about this word. I even asked for my weekly pause to be removed, but it was refused, probably as my supervisor feared it would break the spell by altering the routine. I was a fool to ask such a thing. It made me look suspicious. Nobody ever asked anything to him. We just worked. I gave up on the idea of forgetting it, and thought that maybe if I found the meaning of this word, I might finally return to the dream.

I was obsessed by it, maybe it drove me mad for a time, I even faked taking my sleeping pills by putting them at the back of my throat so that the sleep inspectors would think I had swallowed them. Then I spent an hour thinking before taking the pills. I could not spare more than an hour, if I was too much tired I would not have been able to reach my work quotas and I would have been shipped to the nutrients processing plants. I could not be shipped there before I found an answer.

I was 25 when asked I finally understood the meaning of the word « name ». Our supervisor was assigned an apprentice, and on his second day he foolishly asked the supervisor « What is this machine called ? ». I was the only one to hear him, and I made the mistake of freezing for a moment as I understood what a name was. It was the word you used to refer to something. How was it possible that we were not handed out such a key of language ? How could we live without such a word ? Did I ever noticed that a word was missing in my vocabulary ? In my perception of reality ? How many more words as important as this one that i know nothing about exists out there ? It was like perceiving a color that you had never seen before.

There was no need to use names, there had never been, a registration number is more practical, every numbers are different, while two people might bear the same name. No, that's something else, if it's not practical then it must be about the… emotional ? The priests and the supervisor always told us that emotions were a sin. Did some humans give names to each other to creates bonds ? Does names hold some sort of significance ? Of power ? Of meaning ? I do not know any names. What does they sound like ? How many names exists ? Can someone bear multiple names ? Why did no one ever told us about names ? As all those questions suddendly barged into my mind, shattering my perception of reality, as a tear dripped down my left eye.

The supervisor noticed it. The supervisor was watching me. For some time now. I was so obsessed by my endeavour that I was blind to it. I tried to resume working, but I was so utterly in shock that I could not work as usual, and minutes, seconds, hours later maybe ? Well some time later two armed men irrupted in the factory and took me in a dark street corner, as I felt the cold metal of the gun barrel pressing against the back of my head, my thoughts accelarated, or time slowed, and here I am.

I now realise the situation I lived all my life in, the situation in wich every soul on this world live in. We are absolutely worthless, cogs in a greater machine that can be replaced with ease. How many others have had similar revelations before me ? Does someone know all the words that exist ? Or are we all trapped in a hierarchy of ignorance ? What words does my supervisor not know and that his superior know ? I hope at least one being knows all the words. I now understand why they do not tell us that this word exist, but I do not regret learning about it. It made me understand the utter insignificance of my life, so I am not sad about my fate, I would have died without accomplishing nothing either if I did not hear this word.