The young man who sat by the field did not have a name, not one he remembered. In the silent hollow, names had been among the first things to fade, unnecessary labels for interchangeable parts of a broken machine. But as he sat, day after day, watching the stubborn green defy the dead earth, a word began to surface from the murk of his mind. It came not as a memory, but as a sensation—the feeling of sun on his back, the image of a riverbank, and a sound: *Elian*.
He tested it silently on his tongue. *Elian*. It fit the hollows of his mouth in a way that felt both foreign and familiar. He did not speak it aloud. The single note he had produced days before had exhausted some long-dormant part of him, and the silence that had rushed back in to fill the space felt heavier, more oppressive than before. It was the silence of expectation, and he had nothing more to give.
But he did not return to the pump.
