Cavernous Breathing

What is my name? is a short story inspired by Cavernous Breathing by Samanta Schweblin that begins by placing us on a street looking toward a window where a mother asks a question, then positions us in the window from which that same question is asked.

What is my name?

My mother asked me to tell her her name. She was standing at the window with her polar bear face when she shouted at me: hey, so-and-so, what’s my name? while I walked away blowing her kisses.

She’s that kind of joker. But today, returning to her house and seeing little colored papers everywhere—on the refrigerator door: refrigerator; on the pillow’s spine: pillow; on a shoe’s tip: shoe—I’ve remembered the incident.

The house seems alone, and as I check paper by paper, it also seems strange. With everything marked and named, like a millionaire old lady tattooed with Disney characters. It also seems like a sad house—matters of decoration, my mother would say.

I wait for her at the window to return, and while I wait, I see a girl walking away blowing me kisses and I shout, just playing: hey, so-and-so, what’s my name? While reading it on the pink paper I peeled from my forehead.