Serial

If you have a name you have something. You have yourself; you have an identity. Identity is something that I have been deprived of for the time it takes for a soul to recycle – it seems like forever. 1

For a long time I have been no one, simply a number: twenty-six; zero; six; forty-two; twelve. That’s what I was called inside my mother, on all the papers ever written about me. When I came into the world. When they held me inside that hollow space with bars. When they forced chemicals through my skin to change me. Through all of that, I was just a number. I was just 26-0-6-42-12. Nothing more, with no way to be anything less.2

I was brought to life in Russia. It’s my homeland, though I’ve never seen it. I’ve never seen the snowdrifts or the mountains. Shortly after I rolled out of my poor mother’s body, wringing with slime and blood, I was taken to a blanket to warm. I’m told that was the time when they killed her. But, it was the Soviet Union. It is a cold place.3

I grew up in The Facility. Hearing only the humming of the generators and the lights; the moans and cries of others who shared my fate. We were the guinea pigs. The ones you can thank for biological weapons and super-soldiers pumped full of drugs. We were the ones who died to insure that these machines were “safe”. We were not humans. They did not treat us like humans. Being treated like a human is how you learn to become one.4

It wasn’t until I found Miri that I christened a name. Miri gave me life. She gave me happiness. She gave me music. Music was everything. In the darkest and most silent places I could create music of my own, with my voice and my hands and my brain. I could just think music. I could create light for myself. I could bring a smile to Miri. She would watch me from across the hall as I gave private concerts for the spiders that were my resident roommates. They crawled on my fingers. Sometimes I pretended they were singing with me too. Miri said she could hear them.5

Miri was Greek. She knew almost all there was about the Greek Gods. She would tell me all about them until I was asleep. I’m not sure how the Gods got her here, but I appreciated her company. Miri was the one who named me. She called me Dreama. She said it means “with joyous music”. She said I needed it. From then on I was someone.6

I was no longer 26-0-6-42-12. I was Dreama – the one who sings.7