He had a name once. Perhaps they all did.

1.

He'd remember in glimpses, snatches. Grass. Reeds. A piece of summer sky. Chinese characters hanging from the ceiling like jars of fireflies or astronomy sets. Or perhaps that was just Amon's mask; phosphorescent,glowing, brighter in the shadows than underneath the klieg lights of the stadium.

2.

He lost his name the first time he put on his gloves. He wasn't the Lieutenant back then, just a blur among hundreds. A martyr. A sacrifice. Maybe it was because he accidentally electrocuted himself or because a masked little girl blocked his chi in two seconds that he realized that he had forgotten his name. Voiceless cicada. Cantharides.

"You don't forget names," Amon had told him, "because to forget would mean to remember."

"Then-"

"You lose them."

"But won't losing them mean finding them in the future?"

"Once they're lost, some things cannot be found."

3.

He found his name in bits and pieces.

He was Mao. 茅. Grass. Reeds. A farmer's boy. A child with long, dark hair watering an ox. Mao. Mao. Mao. Mao. Mao. 茅. 茅. 茅. 茅. 茅. The fireflies were long gone, the phosphorescence, and he had to remind himself of who he was. Bits and pieces. Grass. Reeds. Summer sky.

4.

The Lieutenant was gone. Mao was, too.

5.

He woke up buried under debris. They would find him, arrest him later. Accessory to the crime. You have the right to remain silent. But lost things did not have names. They would be condemning a gust of wind, a ghost, maybe a face if they looked hard enough.

(But they never did.)