Your Name Has Been Repossessed

How it begins

The receptionist asked me to return my name badge.

I thought she meant the plastic holder.

She meant the name.

"It was repossessed at midnight."

"There's an appeal pending."

"Then you should have received a temporary designation."

I showed her the number on my phone.

She entered it into the visitor system. The screen refused me with a sound I had heard a thousand times while explaining debt procedures to other people.

Mira Cole had a meeting at nine.

I no longer did.

Through the glass door I could see my desk, my mug and the plant I had kept alive through three reorganizations. My colleague Daniel looked up, recognized my face and then deliberately looked back down.

The receptionist lowered her voice.

"I'm sorry."

It was the first thing that morning that had not required authentication.

At ten fourteen, the auction notice arrived.

My name had sold above reserve.

The buyer's representative invited me to collect any nontransferable personal effects by Friday. Relationships, obligations and unresolved claims would be assessed separately.

I read that sentence twice.

Then my phone rang.

A man's voice asked whether I had promised to visit a woman called Ada on Sunday.

"My mother."

"She's called six times."

"Who are you?"

"Currently," he said, "Mira Cole."

I sat on the wall outside my own office.

The man sounded tired. That pleased me more than it should have.

"I purchased a commercial identity package," he said. "Nobody mentioned a mother."

"She was in the small print."

A pause.

"She says you know where her blue cardigan is."

I closed my eyes.

The city moved around me, full of people wearing names they had remembered to pay for.

"Kitchen drawer," I said. "Under the tea towels."

The man wrote it down.

Then he asked what else he had bought.

For the first time all morning, I had something the system needed.