THE MAN WITH MANY NAMES

Once upon a time there was a not so great man, who had loads of names. If you followed him closely every day, you could hear him introduce himself differently each day. He used made up names like Mick Swagger or John Jones Jr (he once used the name Mehmed Mohammed but that was very racist so let's not talk about that), but the girls at the bars he went to seemed to really be charmed by them. Where he lived, nobody knew, he probably didn't have a home. He never spent more than one night in one place. It's only known that he operated in Illinois, mostly around Chicago.

One day, as he was waking up next to a woman whose name he hardly remembered, it was Myrtle or something, he said to himself: ,,Man, this ain't it." He said it louder than he intended to, so he woke up Myrtle. He turned around to look at her, Myrtle's face was all messed up, because she didn't wash her face the previous night and now make-up was smeared on her face. She kindly said: ,,What's wrong, Jerry?" (Apparently that's the name he's given himself yesterday.) He stood up and tried to power pose, but he just looked weird, then he confidently said: ,,Marla - I mean Myrtle, all my life I was a good-for-nothing, but I wanna turn it all around and start a new life, find a job and settle down. I'm moving to Alaska!" She was shocked and confused but couldn't show it, because it was 7 a.m. and she was still very tired. They just looked at each other for the next few minutes, not moving a muscle. Out of the blue, Myrtle looked away, took a deep breath and said: ,,I have to admit that I'm no goody-two-shoes either, I really pissed off my ex husband and now he wants me dead. Could I come with you?" He thought it was a pretty good idea, he obviously wouldn't mind some company (especially her), so he let her join him. Myrtle packed her toothbrush, Jerry (he decided to stick with it) didn't really own anything so he had nothing to take with him. They walked a few blocks to Myrtle's car, which was a beat up Ford. Jerry finally managed to start the car on his third try. Nothing was holding them back.

It was an exhausting four-day drive, but eventually they arrived at their destination, Anchorage. By the time they got there, they already knew each other perfectly and some might even say that they were in love.

Petr Šimáček