Holm

         What’s in a name?

For there is a name, here, written on the first page of Pygmalion—‘to Miss I. Connor’. But who does this name belong to? The spine is creased, the cover a faded orange, worn and thumbed. I was only ever a great reader when I was younger. I wonder who this was dedicated to. The name seems slightly familiar, and more so as I stare at it.

I think this was dedicated to me.

I sit for hours trying to remember what the ‘I’ stands for. Am I an Imogen, or an Isabella? Or perhaps something more out there, like an incident, an illusion, or an island. I struggle to remember where I came from, where I lived before I was brought to the mainland, and studied hard enough to get myself a ticket to New York as a journalist. The word ‘island’ seems to feel right. Somewhere a projector starts up and begins to play something old on the wall: a faded yet beautiful flashback begins with a lone grain of sand in a child’s palm. Hold a city...

“Hold a city in the palm of your hand,” she whispers, closing my fingers around the grain. I squeeze my eyes shut. I imagine green skyscrapers and sandstone churches, crowds, and a million twinkling lights. “Have you done it? Did you wish for a city?” she laughs, and I open my hand. Disappointment floods my face.

“Look, you have your own city! It only takes something small to create something magnificent.” Her eyes are glittering turquoise. “Hold it tight in your hand, and never let it go.”

“But there’s nothing there,” I whine.

“Yes there is, if you believe that it’s there,” she pleads, staring intently at my palm as though she’s waiting for a building to rise out of my skin. “If you believe, it will always be there. Let it grow and keep it safe. The sand is the seed...”

I look out towards the horizon. The colours are odd tonight, poisonous green and purple, sinking into the ocean with a look of sacrifice, of veracity. I feel the warmth of the sand as I scoop it up and squeeze it in my hands, trying to force the city out. The wind smells of salt and bone and the hard grains slip through my fingers.

There is a woman dancing along the beach, tall and painted in purple light. When I think of her I remember a field of cacti, all different shapes and heights, some bowing to touch the sun-drenched earth and others stretching high and proud, trying to reach the skies. I remember flat rocks the colour of red powder, elegant seashell necklaces woven out of rope. I think of gold and turquoise, stories of mermaids and pirates, and bare feet washing in rock pools. She is fearless, and she is glorious. A mother’s hug is unlike any other—it frees you, reminds you.

What is this strange island in my memory? What is this recollection of a woman whose face I know but whose spirit seems so far away? The image on the wall is gone, and I am left clutching at the book. I look down at it, puzzled.

New York is different to the city that girl dreamed of long ago. The hard angles and glass floors are too modern, too unforgiving, compared to the great stone edifices wrapped in vines of ivy and seaweed that she imagined. There are no birds here, only planes that fly too close, flashing bright red eyes down to the people below. We scuttle up and down the streets like ants.

Why did she think of something so different? How did she get it so wrong?

I must’ve put her behind me, for I can’t really remember who she was or what she did. She changed her home when her mother went missing—the memory of her dancing, wild and free, must’ve been the last—and was taken from that devastating island to a desolate stretch of grass that curled into frosted spikes in winter, and was trampled by the endless rain. England had so much beauty beyond her reach. She was stuck in its countryside. And now, here I am. The place I call home is one of the largest cities in the world. But I do wonder, sometimes, what it would be like now on that island. I hanker after her, and what she would have been like.

Island, I think, furrowing my brow. I run my finger along the title of the play. It’s funny to think that on a strip of land so small, I still managed to get a hold of George Bernard Shaw.

I look up—oh, of course. Isla. My name is Isla.