Naming (Chapter 8)

It is people who named us dragons, you know. We just call ourselves with our names in our pack and honestly I don’t think any dragon had ever thought about defining what our breed is. People love naming things. In fact, they need to name things, I don’t exactly understand why. Maybe it is easy for them to define and move on. Anyhow, I heard they named this asteroid as “Alain Fournier”. You only give a number 13534 to it.

• Yes sir that’s true. Humans named here Alain Fournier. We find numbers more trustful than words.

Words… Words are enchanted. People seriously know that. Do you know why they gave this asteroid that name?

• No sir. Could you show the kindness to illuminate me?

They explored this asteroid long ago. I don’t know if they realised this was an asteroid when they first saw it. But it was a huge discovery for the astronomers at that time. That’s why they named it as Alain Fournier. In this way they believed that they could embody their long lost childhood joy.

• Excuse me sir, but as I see through my device the person you mentioned is an author from Earth, isn’t he? Besides, he only wrote just one book.

Ah! You see, you had to live with them to understand this spell. This man who wrote only one book immortalised childhood joy.

• I can not comprehend. How come they can immortalise childhood joy? And I can not see the link between naming an asteroid and childhood joy.

You have to live with them to understand how enchanted words are. Anyhow, I will try to explain, if I can. Well… Let me see… I told you about Armada and how other humans treated her.

• Yes sir, first they envy and jealous then they respected her.

The most important part was not this. Remember how humans made her imortal.

• They gave her name to their first fleet of ships.

As you know, humans still use her name for ship fleets and even for spaceships. Dou you see the link now? They immortalised childhood joy like they immortalised my friend in an abstract way.

This author Alain Fournier wrote just one book: Le Grand Meaulness. It translated to so many languages. In my language this book’s name is “Adsız Ülke”. Ironically it means “Nameless Land”. The book mostly based on author’s childhood and he tries to seize the joy of childhood. We all know that no matter how hard we try or how long our childhood is, our joy is destined to fade.

I miss lots of things and sometimes I want to burn all the potato heads here. But still, I am as joyful as I can be anywhere and I live in peace. The spell really works.

• Do you really believe that, sir?

Oh yes I do. I do believe with all my heart.