Born Without a Name

While I was in her womb, the fortune teller told them that I would be a boy.

It made them so happy that they made a long list of boy’s names and bought all the baby boy’s stuff.

I was the biggest disappointment for them when I arrived.

“Damn! A girl!” he said.

So, I didn’t have a name.

They just put my birth month as the first name and allowed some busybody nobody to make up my remaining name to fill in the birth certificate.

Anyway, they didn’t use my official name much because they gave me many other names after that:

Stupid, Idiot, Bloody Fool and Bloody Swine because I was dumb. There were more, too many for me to remember.

They didn’t bother to understand the reasons behind my behavior, and perhaps that lack of effort made it convenient for them to redirect their own frustrations and disappointments onto me.

I became an easy target, a canvas for their unmet expectations and a receptacle for their physical aggression.

Maybe they just hated me.

I’m glad I didn’t succumb to those abuses.

I was also called a Bastard. At that time, I often wished that I were actually a bastard, secretly hoping that my biological parents would someday come to my rescue.

No one ever came…

They called me a Stupid Whore when I was dumped by a love rat that cheated me out of my savings, bought a car with it and got a new girlfriend.

I lost everything and had to work in a job that pays very little, requiring a two-hour of anxiety inducing commute each day.

Public transportation was a nightmare in this place.

I almost ended up becoming the very thing they called me— because they kept pressuring me for money despite my own financial struggles.

At the time, I believed it might be my only way to escape the dire situation I was in.

Later on, they called me a Savage- because I wasn’t behaving in a way that they preferred and refused to obey their unreasonable demands.

My primary school teacher called me an Idiot too, again because I was a slow learner.

My parents and my teacher can be good friends.

Beyond that, I was just a prop in their narrative — a means to uphold the facade of being “good parents” to the outside world.

They exploit my accomplishments to impress their friends — like when I managed my own business, they conveniently emphasized those aspects.

Yet, apart from these superficial displays, I remain relegated to the status of a mere savage, an idiot, a whore in their eyes.

My partner and I shared the same name but with different spellings in different languages. His was in Mandarin, and mine was in English.

I don’t know what the issue was with that. There is this person that simply refused to call me by my name and instead gave me the nickname “Moi Moi,” which I think means girl.

It made me feel like I’m a stray dog being called “Doggie.”

Even cats and dogs get called by their names.

But not me.

I kept it to myself because I didn’t want to seem like a difficult person, and that was one “privileged” person as I mentioned in my previous story.

I can’t afford to offend her.

After my estrangement from my parents, I chose a new name for myself — a name for a brand-new start in life.

I need to rebuild my life.

I no longer want to be held back by the past.

I refuse to continue living in the shadow of my abusive childhood.

I chose a new name for myself.

Still, I was being called like a stray dog, supposedly because she found my new name difficult to pronounce.

But that reasoning makes no sense.

What about my former name? It wasn’t hard to pronounce; in fact, it was the same as my partner’s.

It sounded like another baseless excuse to me.

I deserve to be addressed by my name.

My name is not some unspeakable demon’s name that will summon evil spirits when uttered.

I’m not a stray dog that you called a “Doggie.”

I am a human being.

I am entitled to my dignity and respect.

Perhaps, if this story makes enough money, maybe I can get a name tag with my name on it.

©Emika Oka

Thank you for reading 🖤

Previously published on From The Corner of My Mind

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