A14
Collective Memory
Excerpt from collection:Call it Awash: Stories and aphorisms.

august

He liked his name: August.
He liked the sound of it:
the cadence of the two syllables,
the shapes it makes in your mouth
and the sudden stop at its end.
He also liked that it is the name of a month,
and his favorite one at that
(although probably not by coincidence).
What he most liked about his name, though,
was that it sounded very much like the name of
a fictional character, although he was fairly certain he wasn’t one.
It was one of those names that a hero in a story might have,
but a name you would never actually meet somebody with,
like Helghorn or something.
He wondered what type of hero he might be.

Usually, fictional characters’ names have a great deal to say
about what the characters will eventually become and do.
As well as a month, august is an adjective.
Although not as popular as it once was,
the boy knew its definition well:

au-gust
1: Respected and impressive.
The boy was an august opponent.

His mother was the one who had picked his name,
but he never asked her why that one.
Was she under the impression that he would become a hero of some kind?
Or did something happen in August that she was particularly proud of?
He thought about asking her before she went,
but she wasn’t herself then.

Ruth Crimson-Forde