Names -- help me come up with names

Let us begin where many a greater storyteller has tied the knot on their tale. We begin, of course, with the day of the wedding. We find ourselves at the top of six flights of stairs. One woman, three men, one of which the groom, bracing themselves to carry their mother down by the handles and bars of her wheelchair.

The children lifted her down five flights of stairs, tipping her backwards so she sunk deeper. She clutched to the back of her chair. The siblings tried not to lose their footing on the narrow staircase. It did not occur to their mother to apologise, being the kind of woman who had the audacity to have developed an inability to use either of her legs.

In those days, wheelchairs were a best ignored problem. Most hotel owners adopted an out of sight out of mind approach to avoiding the dilemma. After all, if no accommodation was convenient for people in wheelchairs, then the wheelchairs would have to go. Thus solving the widespread problem of physical disability. For the Malborough hotel, this strategy had worked for over twenty-five years.

Mrs. Nicolas Bourz — oh, I fear each name may require an explanation. This was of the time when women lost their names at the same time as they gained marriage certificates. Being over seventy, Mrs. Nicolas Bourz had misplaced both birth and marriage certificate long ago, and her name, therefore, is of no importance.

The children, who were no longer children but tied to the name of childhood in their mother’s memory, smiled and clapped when they reached the ground floor. The groom, having shrunk his already slender waist to better slip into his tailored suit, peered into the neighbouring mirror to smooth down a non-existent stray hair. His siblings watched him tenderly, and the youngest son took hold of the handles on his mother’s wheelchair, a quiet indication that it was time to leave.

They of course, are allowed names in this narrative, for none of them were married, save the second eldest brother— but losing one’s name has never been a man’s vocation.