a story with no name

Once there was a girl with no name. She lived long ago and faraway, in a land beriddled with goblins and rainbows. She has no father and no mother, just a long-gone brother. Her brother, who had a name that she could not quite recall, had gone to fight in a distant country. She did not know what he was fighting for, but then again, neither did he.

The girl spent most of her days sewing. She wasn't quite sure why she sewed or when she would stop, but she knew that if she did stop, terrible things would happen. The goblins had told her so, as they slid down the rainbows that led to her lake. And the goblins were always right.

One day, as she sat sewing by her lake (a lake of many colours, for all the rainbows landed there) she planned a plan. She wasn't quite sure what the plan was but she knew that girls in her situation always needed a plan. Her plan, like herself, had no name. This was a problem, she thought. Names give power, the goblins had told her that. They all had names and they were free to roam and play as much as they wanted. She had no name and she had no power, that much was clear. If, so she pondered, her plan had a name, then her plan had power. But how did one go about getting a name? 

She called out to a passing goblin,

"Peter!" she cried, for that was his name. (The goblins all had very sensible names, even though they were not very sensible creatures.)

"Yes, girl?"

"How did you get your name?"

"How did I get my name?"

"Yes, how did you get your name?"

"Why, I was born with it of course!"

"Born with it?"

"Yes, born with it!"

"How were you born with it?"

"How was I born with it?"

"Yes, how were you born with it?"

(The girl sighed, conversations with the goblins were always like this and it made them very tiresome indeed.)

The goblin tipped his head to one side, pondering for a moment.

"Well, I just am a Peter of course... that's how I was born with it!"

The girl sighed once more as the goblin, fairly pleased with himself, bounced back up a rainbow and left her to her sewing.

Well, thought the girl, I cannot remember being born so how can I remember my name? And, so she continued to think, both my parents are dead and so I cannot ask them my name! And my brother is long-gone, so I cannot ask him my name either...

The girl grew sad at the enormity of her thoughts. She began to weep. And as she wept her sewing slowed until eventually it stopped altogether.  And as she stopped sewing the rainbows gathered around her. They swirled about her fragile shaking shoulders and mingled with her tears until it was impossible to see where the rainbows ended and the girl began. The girl wept more loudly and the rainbows swirled more brightly, wrapping her tightly into a cocoon of colour.

Then the weeping stopped.

The rainbows hatched open.

And Peter (for he had returned to see what all the fuss was about) gasped.

It was not the girl that emerged from the broken rainbows. At least, it was not just the girl. For out of the rainbows stepped her mother and father and, believe it or not, her long-gone brother.

And, what was even more terrifying (to the goblin at least), they all had names.

And names, as you know, mean power.