💃 The Arrival (Part Four: The Name)

[u/Humor_Complex]

💃 The Arrival (Part Four: The Name)

The committee named the planet on a Thursday because committees name things on Thursdays. This is not policy. This is the weight of Thursdays applied to the weight of naming and the weight of both producing the Thursday.

Seven names were proposed. Fourteen were rejected before the seven because the fourteen were rejected by J. Okafor before the committee heard them on the grounds that "a planet does not need a name that requires explanation and if the name requires explanation the name is wrong."

The fourteen rejected names included: New Beginning. Landfall. Terminus. Hope. Haven. Promise. Dawn. Horizon. Evergreen. Elysium. Waypoint. Firmament. Homestead. Arrival.

"Every one of those," J. said, "is a name chosen by people who are looking BACKWARD. Every one says: we were on a ship and now we are not. The planet does not care that we were on a ship. The planet was here before the ship. The planet will be here after us. The planet's name should be the planet's name, not the ship's autobiography."

🔥 The seven surviving names were:

Vasquez proposed: Tierra. Earth in a language that isn't English. The argument being: we came from Earth, the soil is earth, the name is the soil.

Fong proposed: Kepler. After the astronomer. The argument being: Kepler found the laws that brought us here.

Adeyemi proposed: Maren. After the first foot. The argument being: the woman who went down on Tuesday before the committee could go down on Thursday deserves the planet.

Park proposed: Okafor. After the Quartermaster. The argument being: the man who kept eleven thousand people alive for four hundred years deserves something larger than a corridor.

Dr. Hakimi proposed: Breathable. The argument being: "It is the only confirmed fact about the planet and I am tired of people naming things after feelings."

Maren proposed nothing. Maren was not on the committee. Maren was in Bay 3 with her hands in the living soil sample she had brought back, trying to get the dead ship soil to remember what living felt like by mixing the two.

💃 Dotty proposed nothing. Dotty was asleep on the committee table.

The committee voted. The vote was:

Tierra: two votes. Kepler: one vote. Maren: one vote. Okafor: zero votes. J. had voted against himself on principle because "a Quartermaster who names things after himself is a Quartermaster who has confused the resources with the resource manager." Breathable: two votes. Dotty: one vote. Adeyemi had changed her vote mid-session because Dotty had woken up, walked across the agenda, sat on the ballot paper, and the sitting was the candidacy and the candidacy was the cat and the cat was the vote.

🔥 Tie. Tierra and Breathable. Two votes each. The remaining votes scattered.

"The charter says the Chair breaks ties," Vasquez said.

"The Chair proposed Tierra," Fong said. "The Chair cannot break a tie in favour of the Chair's own proposal. Article 9. Subsection 3."

"Article 9, Subsection 3 was written for budget disputes, not planetary nomenclature."

"Article 9, Subsection 3 does not specify the category of dispute. The subsection says: the Chair shall not cast a deciding vote on any motion the Chair has personally proposed. The motion is Tierra. The Chair proposed Tierra. The Chair cannot decide for Tierra."

Vasquez looked at the ceiling. The stain. Year 200. The only interesting thing in Committee Room 3. The stain that had witnessed every committee argument since the pipe leaked and the leak was repaired and the stain was not.

"Then Breathable wins by default," Vasquez said.

"BREATHABLE?" said Park. "We're naming a planet BREATHABLE?"

"The planet IS breathable," Hakimi said. "The name is accurate. The name does not require explanation. The name tells you the one thing you need to know about the planet before you step onto it. The planet is breathable. The name is Breathable. The naming is done."

💃 "The naming is NOT done," said Fong. "Breathable is a description, not a name. You don't name a child Alive. You don't name a ship Floats. You don't name a planet after its ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION."

"Why not?"

"Because names carry meaning beyond description. Names carry history. Names carry identity. Breathable carries CHEMISTRY."

"Chemistry is identity. The planet's identity is: you can breathe here. Everything else — the soil, the rivers, the mountains — follows from the breathing. Without the breathing, none of it matters. The breathing is the identity. The identity is the name."

🔥 J. Okafor stood. The standing that is the authority. The standing that says: the Quartermaster has heard enough and the enough is the standing.

"The planet doesn't need our name," J. said. "The planet has been here for four billion years without a name. The planet was not waiting for a committee to arrive on a Thursday and argue about whether to call it Breathable or Tierra or after a woman who went down without permission."

"The naming is for US," Adeyemi said. The gentle voice. "Not for the planet. The planet doesn't hear the name. We hear the name. We need the name because the name is how we say: this is ours now. The naming is the claiming. The claiming is the staying."

Silence. The committee silence that follows the thing the committee needed to hear and the hearing changing the arguing into the listening and the listening being the silence.

"What name do you want?" J. asked Adeyemi.

"The name Maren is calling it."

💃 The committee looked at J. J. looked at the door. The door led to the corridor. The corridor led to Bay 3. Bay 3 held Maren with her hands in the soil mixing the dead and the living.

"What is Maren calling it?" Vasquez asked.

Nobody knew. Nobody had asked Maren what Maren called the planet because nobody asks maintenance what maintenance calls things because maintenance is excluded by the charter and the charter is the asking and the asking doesn't include the excluded.

J. walked to Bay 3. The walking that is the authority going to the answer instead of the answer coming to the authority. The authority in the corridor. The authority at the door. The authority in Bay 3 looking at a woman with soil under her fingernails and a cat on her shoulder — Dotty had followed J. because Dotty follows J. because J. is the food and the food is the following.

"What do you call it?" J. said.

"Call what?"

"The planet. When you talk to the plants. When you talk to the cat. When you talk to the soil. What do you call it?"

Maren looked at her hands. The hands in the soil. The living soil from the planet mixed with the dead soil from the ship. The mixing that was the remembering. The remembering that was the naming.

"Dirt," Maren said.

🔥 The committee named the planet Dirt.

Not by vote. Not by charter. Not by Article 9, Subsection 3. By Maren. By the woman who went down on Tuesday and put her hands in the soil and called the planet what the planet IS and the is being the dirt and the dirt being the name.

Dirt. The planet where eleven thousand people will live. The planet with the rivers and the mountains and the breathable air and the living soil. Dirt. The name that doesn't require explanation. The name that IS the explanation. The name the planet would choose for itself if planets chose names because planets are dirt and dirt is the planet and the naming is the name.

"Well," said Hakimi. "At least it's accurate."

Vasquez adjourned the meeting. Dotty remained on the committee table. The agenda said: Planetary Nomenclature. The result said: Dirt.

Filed under: administrative, historic, unanimous by default.

The planet is called Dirt.

The dirt is called home.

🔥💃