That Which We Call A Rose (Original Short Fiction)
Dr. Mandrake sighed as he sat at the bar. The air was musty and stale with the weight of shattered hopes and broken dreams. A half-dead juke in the corner rattled out some tinny notes of a melancholy tune. The stools at the bar rotated hands every so often as one vagrant staggered out and was replaced by another. What the hell did Bryce see in this place?
"You look a bit out of place."
Dr. Mandrake glanced over to the seat beside him. He hadn't been aware of its occupant until now.
"I'm meeting someone. Thanks, Mike," he said as the bartender slid him a pint.
A slight smile emerged on the stranger's face.
"You must be somewhat regular here if you know the bartender by name."
Dr. Mandrake shrugged slightly.
"It's a favorite haunt of one of my colleagues. I couldn't tell you why, but I've been drinking with him for a few years now. Besides, part of my job is learning names. It just kind of becomes second-nature at some point."
"Is that right? What is it you do?"
Dr. Mandrake casually noted that his conversation partner had not taken his eyes from the drink in front of him yet. He also hadn't touched it. He wrote this off as just one of the many idiosyncrasies you were likely to see in a place like this.
"I'm a doctor. I mainly work in the morgue."
"Oh? And you say that learning names is a part of your profession?"
Dr. Mandrake took a swig from his pint glass. He shuddered and momentarily suppressed his gag reflex. Mike was serving the good stuff tonight.
"Yeah, well, maybe not for everyone. One of the things they taught us in medical school was to stay as detached as possible. Learning names is fine for the living patients, but it's easier to carve up a slab of meat than a slab of Frank, so they say."
"From your tone, I take it you do not care for that sentiment."
Dr. Mandrake finished his pint. "You could say that," he said as he signaled for another.
"I must wonder why. Surely you have no reason to learn the name of a corpse any more than a pile of rubble."
Dr. Mandrake sneered.
"You sound like one of my old professors. He was a materialist. He always told us to stop thinking of corpses as 'people'. I hardly think he thought of the living as people, either. He just saw humans as piles of flesh and organs and chemicals, like complicated organic machines. He thought of himself more as a mechanic than a doctor."
"So you learn their names as an act of defiance? A rebellion against a philosophy you do not condone?"
Dr. Mandrake looked at his companion again. He seemed to be having trouble focusing on any one of his features in particular, though maybe that was the beer.
"Maybe. To some extent. But it's not so much in defiance of a philosophy I reject, but for the sake of one I accept."
"Interesting. And what philosophy might that be?"
Dr. Mandrake extended his index finger from the glass in his hand towards the bartender. "Before I answer that, let me ask you something. Who is that?"
"You called him Mike. I am assuming that is his name."
Dr. Mandrake nodded.
"And tell me, if you did not know his name, what would you have said?"
"I suppose I would have said that I do not know who he is, save that he is the bartender."
Dr. Mandrake smiled, and took another drink.
"My point exactly. Before you knew his name, he was not a person, but a profession -- a title. He was just another cog in the works. But now you know his name, and so he is not 'the bartender', but Mike; he is a man with a history and a future and a life all his own. That is why I learn names: because names are powerful. Names connect us. They bind us and they join us, and they remind us that we are not alone. Humans are not isolated creatures, but part of a greater community. We are not meant to separate ourselves."
"Then why learn the name of a corpse? What connection do the living have with the dead?"
Dr. Mandrake finished his second pint. This conversation was making him thirsty.
"Living or dead, a person is a person. Perhaps the corpse has lost its animating principle, whatever that may be, but it still belongs to someone. It does not cease to have dignity or value simply because it is no longer conscious. So I learn the names of the bodies that come into my morgue, not for the sake of connecting to who they are, but who they were. I must think of them as people to remember that they are not trash, but deserving of the same respect as you or me. Perhaps that makes my job more difficult, but I would rather suffer as a human than live as a monster."
The stranger effected a wide grin.
"Most interesting. You have certainly given me much to think about. I do hope that we will have the chance to talk again."
Dr. Mandrake nodded to Mike as he slid him another glass.
"You know where to find me. I'm Dr. Mandrake, by the way. It seems after all this talk of names, we still have not exchanged ours."
"Indeed. I am glad to meet you, doctor, but I am afraid I do not have a name to give you in return."
Dr. Mandrake paused with his glass to his lips.
"Surely you have one, though?"
"Of course, but it is not in my nature to dole it out to casual acquaintances. Perhaps when we meet again."
Dr. Mandrake shrugged, then spluttered as Dr. Stephens clapped him on the back.
"Hey you sonuvabitch, who said you could start without me? Mike, get me a beer why don't you."
"Sorry, Bryce. I just got caught up in a conversation with--"
The stool beside him was empty. A few bills were underneath the still-untouched drink.
"Oh. I guess he left."
Dr. Stephens gave his friend a quizzical look, then sat down at the stool beside him.
"Well, what was his name?"
Dr. Mandrake shrugged.
"What's in a name?"