Wrong Name

“Large mocha frappe, no whipped cream for Milton!”, the barista shouted. There it was again–Milton. The same barista brought the same drink in the same café and yelled the same name for the past week. He glanced around, expecting anyone, be it a man or a woman or a child or even an animal, to step forward and finally end this charade. “Milton!”, again the barista yelled. He looked left and right, no one moved. “What the hell is going on here?”, he thought. “That’s clearly my exact order, but why does he keep saying Milton? I gave him my name, my REAL name, so why does he keep using THAT name?” As puzzled as he was, he still picked up the drink and took a sip from the straw (after all, it was the drink he paid for with his hard-earned money). It tasted fine as it always had since the first time he stepped in the cafe, before this whole name game business. Still, as he walked out the door, the name stuck with him. It was buzzing at the edges of his thoughts like a song he didn’t like but somehow knew all the lyrics and would hum the tune all the way to work.

What made this all the more strange was that it wasn’t just the barista that was saying Milton, it was nearly everyone. The woman at the dry cleaners when he was picking up his dress pants, the owner of the deli when he was going for his usual pastrami on rye, even his boss at the office. They all said the same name. He’d try and correct them at first by saying “Actually, it’s-” or “No, my name is-” , but they’d all blink twice, confused, and simply smile it off as if he was the strange one. As if the world made perfect sense, they’d all say “Right…Milton”, and nod it off. By the end of that same week, he stopped trying. Why fight it anymore? If his name was Milton, then that’s what he’ll go by. He signed a memo under the name, he answered his company phone under the name, he grabbed his coffees and sandwiches and clothes all under Milton. Milton didn’t know why he stuck with it and defended his real name. Milton didn’t know how or when it started, but he learned early in his life that change is necessary in the world. He learned to accept the change, he learned to love being Milton.

It was sometime about 5 years later, at the deli. Milton was in his usual spot, waiting for his usual order, when the owner called out “Here ya go, Jacob!”. Jacob? Milton looked left and right, but he was the only one in the deli that hadn’t received his order. He sat there, puzzled, as the deli owner looked straight at him and repeated, “Jacob? Pastrami on rye?” A small pause. “That’s you, right?” Still looking perplexed, Milton (or, apparently, Jacob) stammered and said “I…I think you mean Milton.” The owner furrowed his brow. “Milton? This some kinda game?”, the owner asked. “No, you just called me Jacob. My name’s Milton, you know that.” The owner simply shaked his head in disinterest and walked away, leaving Milton’s (Jacob’s?) sandwich on the high counter. At the office, as Milton logged into his computer, his top priority email started with: “Greetings, Jacob!” Again, “Jacob”? Milton sat at his desk staring at that name for about a minute, when he was startled by his boss when he gave a pat on the back and said “Great job on the client report, Jacob!” What was going on? Why was everyone, even machines, calling him Jacob? He looked down at his ID badge (which he had no idea where it came from) and it said “Jacob K. Parker”, and next to the name was his picture with a big grin on his face as if he was the new guy on his first day on the job. The same thing happened at the cafe when he went for his usual drink and the barista called out “Jacob!”, even when the young worker asked for his name and he looked him dead in the eye and told him “Milton, MY NAME IS MILTON!”. Milton (or was he Jacob?) had had enough of it and rushed directly to the barista who asked his name and stared at him with cold, dead eyes and demanded “I told you my name! You’ve known my name for the past 5 years! So, why?! Why did you call me Jacob when I said Milton??” The barista, being only a mere 23, simply answered back “Sir, you said your name was Jacob. There’s no such name as Milton, anymore.” Anymore?

Things were truly turning upside down for Milton (or Jacob, apparently). As much as the ID out of nowhere at work startled him, it was two things that stuck with him: the recurring sudden name change and what the barista told him. He wasn’t Jacob, he was Milton. He had to be, wasn’t he? How could a name not exist anymore? A name’s a name and it sticks with anyone, be it human or animal or object. Regardless, he found himself in an endless cycle of correcting, explaining, insisting to everyone that his name was Milton, of course keeping to himself that he had been Milton for the past 5 years. The cycle would prove to be useless as it would result in his counterparts giving nervous smiles, blank stares, and people giving him looks like he had seagulls flying out of his ears. Milton (Jacob, whatever his name was) sat on the edge of his bed, staring into the darkness of the night and wondering what did this all mean. Just before midnight, his cell phone rang. The name on the screen said “UNKNOWN”, but, at this point, he wasn’t affected by it and answered the call. The voice on the other end spoke slowly, almost gently. “We’re glad you enjoyed being Milton”, it said. “But your trial period is over.” Click.