The Man With No Name

A story about a man's obsession to find out a mysterious performer's name.

A man in his late thirties sat in a bar and drank away. He went there every Saturday night around eleven o'clock. The bar usually had a live performer at ten and the show would last to eleven-thirty or midnight. The man ordered another beer and leaned back in his chair as a young adult went on the stage. The young man seemed to be in his early twenties. He looked down at the microphone until the music played and he sang like no one could ever imagine. His powerful voice echoed off the walls and drifted through out the entire bar drawing everyone's attention. The bar tender cried, as the waitresses swooned, and the careless saw a glimpse of hope. When he got off the stage the applaud he got shook the room.

The man we talked about earlier went up to the young adult and asked him how a guy who can sing like that could end up here. All the young man did was smile and say, "Thank you". The man asked for his name, but the young man shook his head and told the man he could not know his name and left the bar. However, the man needed to know his name, for curiosity got the better of him. Knowing the name of the boy who sang as pleasantly as the heavens was so vital to him. The man asked the bar tender for the young man's name, he only led him to the owner who didn't have a clue. The owner did however came back to the man later to inform him that the young man would be coming back every other Saturday only for the following month and just like the manager said, he was there every other Saturday and every time he was there the man was there waiting for him. He would ask for his name only to get the same upsetting response over and over again.

Time was running out as the month was ending. Knowing the young man's name was no longer a question, but a mission. The man in a desperate matter went to one of his friends he hadn't talked to in years. His old friend was very smart, but also had a very odd collection of things. He entered his friend's pawn shop with the bell on top of the door sending off a high pitched welcoming. The man told his friend all about the young adult. This sounded suspicious to the friend and he warned the man about it, but the man was too obsessed to back down. The friend, afraid his old buddy might go mad, placed a jar on the table. He told the man the jar was magic and he could put any thing he desired in it. The man, who was already infected by madness, didn't question this one bit. The friend explained that he needed to steal the young man's voice and refuse to give it back until he gave him his name. The man thanked him and left in a hurry to get to the bar.

When he got there he patiently waited for the young man to stop performing. The whole time he had a wide smile plastered on his face that seemed to make others back away. When the young performer went outside the man was already waiting for him. He looked up at the young man and once more asked for his name, but this time when the young man went to speak a jar was swiped in front of his mouth and quickly was sealed. The man laughed and explained to the young man if he ever wanted his voice back to tell him his name. The young man with out moving his lips spoke through the jar, "You foolish man, you can never seal away my voice."

The man looked at him in disbelief as the young performer began to speak again this time with his lips. " My name has never been written down, never spoken by any human tongue, and hasn't been in any thought. I am immortal and granted eternal life. All of this would be gone if I told you my name. This spell would break if i spoke my name, so tell me why I should tell a crazily selfish man like you?" The man could only stare blankly off into the distance and when he looked back the performer was gone. The weightless jar he had, felt even emptier in his hands.

The man frustrated with his curiosity was growing even more upset. After that day the young performer didn't return to the bar. A full year went by and the man had asked everyone he could find about the young performer, but no one knew the answer or who he even was. The man grew impatient and feared to be growing more insane by the day. So, one day he decided to put his curiosity in the jar. He locked it away and buried it far away from the town.

Sixty years went by and the man still sat in the bar every Saturday. He was in his nineties now and the oldest one in the entire town. He ordered a beer, like he had always done, and sat back in his chair only to find the young performer he had been so obsessed with years ago had returned on the stage once again. He looked just like he did in the man's faded memories. The man didn't question this and listened to the voice he had long forgotten. The reactions where not that different from the last time he heard the young performer sing. The young performer saw him and looked surprised to see him. The man never left his spot and continued drinking with a joyful smile on his face. The man watched as his faded memory walked out the door, waiting a brief moment outside as if expecting something to happen, but the past didn't repeat this moment for the young performer so he left the bar.

The man died of old age later that night. There where only a few people at his funeral due to the fact that most of the people he knew had already passed. The young performer was there. When it was getting close for the man to be carried off to his grave everyone but the young performer went outside to their cars. Once he felt certain everyone was gone, he whispered in the man's dead ear, "It won't make a difference now, but I can finally tell you my name with out the spell breaking and maybe my name can reach you in the land of the dead." A sad smirk was on the young man's face as he whispered his name into the dead man's ear.