I Uttered No Name


Is there a dream you have dreamed of endlessly in your life? Perhaps you dreamed of money, popularity, honor, power, revenge, or something that transcends all this. The dream you have dreamed of will be at the top of The Tower.

This was a common fact, a fairytale of the people, passed down by past generations.


I was in my teens when I climbed the tower. I was young enough to construct my dreams, and I was old enough to strive for excellence. When I came of age, my parents bought me an expensive pair of hiking boots, a matching set of jacket and pants, and a shaver. They told me that outer appearance mattered and that the tower administrators looked for clean and sharp climbers. They then sent me off to ascend the tower. They said it was a process everyone went through. It just happened that my parents and my brother had climbed the tower with extraordinary results.

The pressure was on me.


I had no doubts of what my parents told me, however. In fact, I embraced the climb for it was an activity that was, no doubt, normal. Every kid of my age climbed the tower, and as painstaking as the climb was, they climbed non-stop for the better life the adults have preached to the kids about.

No one was stopping.


Climbing was no easy job, but my parents taught me the way everyone climbed. The technique they taught me soon became me and climbing became a tad bit simpler. First, I had to find a suitable grabbing spot, typically a a protruding rock. I was to grab it with one hand, then hang on. Next, I found a suitable spot for my feet. I pulled myself up so my feet can be placed on the suitable spot. Then, finally, I use my other hand to find another protruding rock and thus the entire process continues.


The nice thing about the tower is that there are checkpoints every 50 meters or so in which one can rest and, if they fall off, they will crash at the checkpoints miraculously unharmed. So, in a sense, the whole climbing thing wasn’t too dangerous. All everyone had to do was grab and pull the entire way. And that’s all I did, grab and pull endlessly like a machine. But if I was a machine, then I guess everyone else were also machines, so its just the new norm.


I had heard stories about the variety of people who had climbed the tower, so I was expecting some diversity in my climb. For this I endured wearing the rather uncomfortable set of clothing my parents bought me, and for this I shaved my facial hair whenever I had the chance.


Yet, the only life I had met always flew right past me. Here and then an elevator would soar up the tower. In fact, I never actually seen the elevator, but I could here the machinery spinning and churning within the tower. I’ve heard stories about the elevator and the lucky people who were allowed to ride. Those lucky people, by paying some enormous amount of money, were allowed to fly. Fly to around halfway of this tedious tower, so that’s around three years of work skipped in an instant. How amazing and simple it would be to be able to soar to the peak. No need to employ hard work and great care.

I wished I was born with wings.


I was in for a surprise, the day I met the man in his twenties. The man wore a beard that was likely not shaved since puberty. It was horrendous. It grew so long, almost down to his feet. He must be ashamed to see anyone at all in the state he is now, but he didn’t really seem to mind.


The man wore old, yet conspicuously expensive clothing. I never saw an adult man in such a mess, but then again I haven’t seen much people at all for the past two years climbing. But the man’s appearance wasn’t all that crossed my mind.

How weird, I thought, for a man to be climbing down.


It was only natural for all to climb up, towards the want at the top of the tower. Everyone had dreams, and it was told several times that their dreams would come true at the peak. My mother and father lived successful lives and so did my brother, so obviously the fairytale was in no way a tale. I then remembered how my parents characterized a person like this man: a failure. A person who worked in low paying jobs without dreams.

Then the man spoke to me.
“Hello, lad? My name is Carlos.”


I was disgusted and also frightened. A man who lived a different life from everybody else had just spoken to me.

“Uh, hello?” I said.
“What’s your name, lad?”


I decided to give the man my name to quickly get this conversation over with.


I thought for a while. Then, I opened my mouth in response. But, as though my tongue was trying to say a word foreign to me, I merely stuttered.

No name was spoken.