Fred Aiken Writing

Henry Thorne stood in line at the courthouse, the air smelled of bureaucratic disinfectant. He had prepared for this day meticulously, each step a careful maneuver in a grand, invisible game. Henry Thorne, the name on his birth certificate, the name whispered in corridors and written on legal documents, was about to be erased.

He clutched the paperwork tightly, feeling the crispness of the forms against his fingertips, each question answered with precision. The woman at the desk called his name, a summoning that felt both mundane and monumental. He approached her with measured steps, his heart a metronome of anxiety and resolve.

“Reason for name change?” she asked, her voice a blend of indifference and curiosity. She wore a colorful embroidered pin belying her off-hours fun-and-rambunctious personality. Henry figured she might enjoy pina coladas each Friday at the Applebee’s across the street from the courthouse.

“Personal reasons,” he replied, the phrase rehearsed, delivered with the right mix of firmness and ambiguity.

She nodded, accustomed to the secrecy people wrapped around their reasons. She stamped his forms with a finality that resonated through the sterile room. “It’ll take a few weeks to process,” she said, handing back his new identity in its nascent form.

Henry stepped out into the sunlight, the city sprawling around him in its usual chaos. He had always been Henry Thorne, a man defined by routine and expectation. His job at the publishing house was steady, his friends reliable, his life a series of predictable events. But beneath that facade, something deeper churned.

He wandered through the city, each step a farewell to the man he had been. The decision to change his name had been brewing for years, each slight and overlooked moment adding weight until it became an inevitability. It wasn’t about escaping a past or running from a future; it was about rewriting the narrative that others had written for him.

At a café, he ordered a coffee, the barista scribbling “Henry” on the cup, a name that soon would no longer be his. He found a seat by the window, watching people pass by, each carrying their own stories, their own secrets. His phone buzzed with a text from his sister, Emma, asking about their usual Sunday dinner. He typed a quick reply, feeling a pang of guilt for the secret he was keeping.

That evening, he met Emma at their mother’s house, a small, cluttered place filled with memories and the scent of lavender. Dinner was a familiar affair, the conversation flowing easily until Emma asked, “So, what’s new with you, Henry?”

He hesitated, the moment of truth balancing on a knife’s edge. “Not much,” he said, the lie feeling heavier than the truth.

Weeks passed, the city shifting with the seasons, and finally, the letter arrived. He opened it with hands that trembled slightly, the new name staring back at him in crisp black ink: Elias Stone. He whispered it to himself, the syllables foreign yet thrilling on his tongue. Elias Stone was who he was meant to be, a name that carried the weight of choice and reinvention.

He began the process of informing people, starting with the HR department at work, then his friends, each conversation a small revelation. The reactions varied—confusion, curiosity, acceptance. The hardest conversation, though, was with Emma. They met at a quiet park, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows.

“Elias Stone,” she repeated after he told her, the name hanging in the air between them. “Why?”

He took a deep breath, the truth finally ready to surface. “It’s because of Dad,” he said quietly. Their father, a man whose life had been one secret after another, had gone into Witness Protection before either Henry (now Elias) or Emma were born. He had died without telling his kids that they could have had another life, if only…

They had found out after an old associate of their dad’s bumped into Henry and given him a condensed biography of who their father really was. He hadn’t believed him at first, but when he confronted their mother about it later at Thanksgiving, she gave Emma and Henry the full story of the seedy past their father had lived, and how he had turned over evidence to the state in order to get out of a dangerous situation and went into Witness Protection.

Emma’s eyes softened. “But why?”

“And for me,” he admitted. “To start fresh. I never felt like a Henry. I always thought my name should have been something else.”

She reached out, her hand squeezing his. “Elias Stone?” she asked

As they sat there, the city moving around them, Henry Thorne—now Elias Stone—felt the newness of his name settle. It wasn’t about running away but about stepping into a new story, one that he chose.

“Wasn’t Eli Stone a show or something?”

He nodded. Elias told his sister that he always liked that show, so he figured when coming up with a new name that he would chose that of one of his favorite shows. At the time it seemed appropriate.

“I might still call you Henry.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”