An unofficial deed poll moment

Names have been changed to pro­tect the inno­cent. I will admit as much. That prob­ably means I’m guilty. Which means that I changed my name to pro­tect the guilty, rather than the inno­cent. Or did I change my name to pro­tect myself because I’m inno­cent, thereby mak­ing myself guilty in the pro­cess? I’m con­fused. I should prob­ably drink more tea.

X met Y in a crowded room of illit­er­ates, hence the brev­ity of their chosen pseud­onyms. X and Y imme­di­ately got on like a corpse on fire, mainly because they seemed to stick out like two sore thumbs. But X wasn’t really X, and Y wasn’t Y. Both X and Y felt guilty about their indi­vidual decep­tion, but never guessed for a moment that their new best friend could be lying in exactly the same bizarre fash­ion about their true identity.

Were they con artists? Unlikely. Did they each have the law on their tail? Don’t be ridicu­lous. Did they owe more money between them than the national debt of sev­eral small African coun­tries? Well, pos­sibly. Were there events in each of their pasts that they wished so des­per­ately to for­get that they were will­ing to become someone else in order to black out the memories?

There was a moment’s pause, which hung heavy in the con­ver­sa­tion far bey­ond its actual dur­a­tion. Eyes met knowingly.

X and Y made a pact based on a prin­ciple of never using abbre­vi­ated words, and murdered each other in a bloody orgy of viol­ence at the bot­tom of a deser­ted well. W and Z lived hap­pily ever after as them­selves, but never them­selves to any­one else.