The square opened into a street that ran along the eastern side of the market. There was the smell of something being grilled and the distant sound of someone losing an argument.
It was a man's voice. Unhurried. The specific tone of someone explaining something to someone smaller for the second or third time.
"Listen, son. I will be back in two hours. I need to go grab some milk. Wait over here, Abandonned."
I turned.
A man was crouching in front of a child, pointing at a low bench beside the market wall. The child was watching him with the patience of someone who had been through this briefing before. The man stood, nodded once at the child the way you nodded at someone you trusted, and turned to leave.
"Hey," I couldn't help but intercept.
The man stopped.
"Don't abandon your child like that," I said.
The man turned around. He looked at me, then at the child, then back at me, with the slow blinking quality of someone assembling something in real time.
"What?" he said.
"Your child," I said. "You're just going to leave her here?"
"Are you mental?" He looked at the child again. "My child's name is Abandonned."
…?
I opened my mouth.
"Oh," I said.
"Yes." He had the expression of a man who had given this explanation before and had settled into a groove with it. "When I said I'm going to leave Abandonned here, I meant—"
"Your child."
"My child. Yes. Whose name is Abandonned." He gestured at the bench. "She is going to sit there. I am going to get milk. I will return in two hours."
"Right," I said.
"I'm not abandoning anyone," he added, with the mild firmness of a man establishing a fact for the record.
"Of course," I said. "I apologize." I then had to ask, "Did you… by the way…"
The man looked at me.
"Name your child yourself?"
The answer was immediate,
"Yes. Is something wrong with that?"
"Yes—no—never mind."
He looked at me for a moment longer—the look of a man recalibrating a stranger—then nodded and walked off toward the market.
I looked at the child.
The child looked at me.
She was sitting on the bench with the composed self-possession of someone who had been present for that entire exchange and had opinions about it.
I sat down on the far end of the bench. There was no particular reason. I had nowhere to be, a cloth bundle of questionable food, and the residual embarrassment of having accused a man of child abandonment in a public square.
"Abandonned," I said, by way of conversation.
"Yes," she said.
"That's your name."
"Yes."
"Interesting name."
She looked at me with the specific expression of someone who had also heard this before and was deciding whether to engage with it.
"Are you a girl?" I asked.
"No," she said.
"You are a boy then? Your name says otherwise," I said.
She considered me for a moment.
"You caught me," she said. "I am actually a girl."
"Really?" I said.
"No," she said. "Of course not. Get yourself together, dumbass."
I froze for a second. Then, I frowned.
Kids these days…
"...How old are you?" Managing to keep myself composed like a fine adult I was, I asked.
"Five," she said. "And my full name is actually Never Abandonned Boy."
I turned to look at her properly.
She looked back at me with the absolute composure of a five-year-old who had deployed this information before and knew exactly what it did to people.
"Never," I said.
"Yes."
"Abandonned."
"Yes."
"Boy."
"Yes."
"Your first name," I said slowly, "is Never."
"Yes."
"And your last name is Boy."
"Correct."
I sat with this for considerably longer.
If you removed the middle name, her name was Never Boy. Which would be an extraordinary name under any circumstances. Which raised an immediate question. I asked it.
"Are you a boy?" I said.
Never looked at me with the flat patience of a five-year-old who had just answered this.
"I already told you," she said.
"Right," I said. "Yes. Sorry." I paused. "Your father named you Never Abandonned Boy."
"Yes."
"As a... statement."
"I don't know what that means."
"A promise," I said. "They promised, in your name, that you would never be abandoned."
Never appeared to think about this. She swung her feet, which didn't reach the ground, against the bench with the idle energy of someone processing something.
"And then your father just now went to get milk," I said.
"He'll be back," she said.
"Sure," I said.
"He always comes back."
"Of course."
"If just takes… like a year every time he goes to get milk."
"Huh?"
We sat in something that was almost but not quite silence—the market noise around us, the distant argument, the child throwing rocks at the fence post somewhere behind us with tireless dedication.
Roughly two hours later, by my best estimate, the man returned.
"Oh? He did return."
I turned to Never, who was shocked beyond belief. Her jaw dropped, and only then did I get to see how huge her mouth was. Her eyes were on the verge of popping out.
He came from the direction of the market, walking at the unhurried pace of someone whose errand had taken exactly as long as expected. He was not carrying milk.
He stopped in front of the bench. He looked at Never, then at me, then back at Never.
"Sorry," he said. "No milk."
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
"You came back," I said, "because you couldn't find the milk."
He frowned. "I came back because I said I'd be back in two hours."
"Right," I said.
"The milk is a separate problem," he said.
"Of course," I said.
He held out his hand to Never Abandonned Boy, who took it and slid off the bench with the practiced ease of someone who had done this many times. She looked back at me once with the composed expression of a five-year-old who had made several strong points today and was satisfied with the work.
"By the way," I decided to speak in a joking manner, "My full name is Meyer Mayor—"
"Dumbass," she said, without hostility. Then she walked off with her father toward whatever part of Basedland contained their home.
"…"
I watched them go.
The man had returned. In two hours, as stated. Without milk, but present, which was—on reflection—the more important of the two.
I sat on the bench for a moment.
Never Abandonned Boy, I thought. Never.
Sighing, I then stood up.
Well, the search for Ey goes on—
"Hey! You there!" An urgent voice spoke to me. It sounded familiar.
Turning around I saw… wait, isn't this Never's father?
"My child! Where did she go?!" Grabbing my shoulder and shaking, he yelled into my face. He was full of panic. I then noticed that he was holding a bottle of milk with his right hand.
"I—you were just here a second ago and left with your daughter."
The man stopped. Slowly, the bottle of milk dropped from his grasp. The bottle of milk bounced off the ground and flew really high up in the air, and… huh? It just continued to fly up. Why isn't it coming back down?
At last, the man whispered, "Smooth Criminal… it must be him!"
"Smooth—what?"
The man then ran off before I could say any more, leaving me in the dust.
"Uh…"
If anything, that bottle was the real smooth criminal for taking the milk away to the sky.