8 June 3307 - Behind a name
08 Jun 2021Edwin G. Pixley
I stopped at Diaguandri, to unwind a bit and have a chicken noodles soup. There's nothing like a chicken noodle soup after barely escaping from scorching suns and frameshift mishaps. Well, maybe Thai. Thai anything, really... Anyway, people scoff at food cartridges, but I like them, and there're very good here. They may be as natural as Jacques' metal boobs, but they're tasty.
Diaguandri may not look like much from the outside, and I somehow always hyperspace out at the back of the station. Jesus! Who oriented it like this was an idiot. It's not even facing the planet! It's just off to the side. Anyway, since it's high-tech, it looks fine on the inside. Really nice, actually. It's also a good place for a soup. And it looks like I can trade data here.
"Jospeh, is it?"
Mr. Daniel, the data trader, gives an assured smile with just a tinge of embarrassment.
"Yeah, it was supposed to be Joseph, but some lazy clerk typed it wrong. My parents just went along, back in the day in my home system changing the papers was an expensive procedure. The authorities were so corrupt, there were rumors about misstyping baby names on purpose..."
"Why didn't you change it yourself, when you grew up?"
"Sure, I could, but by that time everybody knew me as Jospeh, so I just kept it. All my friends, all my colleagues, you know... everyone who mattered. I've been Jospeh for so long, and I've been doing just fine. So I just kept the name. And there's many Josephs, but only one Jospeh. I thought it was funny. It's my way of embracing the quirkiness of my destiny, I guess."
"Hm." Jospeh's answer got me pensive. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Lots of things happen to us, and many of them we don't like. We can keep fighting against the current or learn to flow with it."
"Yeah, it's like that. There's a lot of good memories behind this flawed name. In the end, I chose this name just as much as the name chose me."
There's nothing special about Jospeh. He's certainly not a looker, but he's not ugly. He's no hero, but he's no simpleton either. Just some regular guy with a regular trade and a misspelled name.
But he knows his trade. He has no charm, zero charisma, but there's also no bravado, no airs of superiority. In his ordinariness, there's a calm and centeredness about Jospeh that I'm beginning to like.