I came up a few feet away and opened my mouth, but what exactly was I going to ask? I mean, now was the time for me to ask something, but it’s like for the first time I realized that asking something would mean actually picking individual words and putting them together to form a clear question. I couldn’t just ball up all my confusion and creeps and toss it to Medusa mask to work out for me. What’s up with the mask, what’s with the mask, why do you always—do you always?—they do—why always you mask wear, why the mask? I couldn’t manage to come up with a possible question. It was like asking why someone was in a wheelchair, first thing, right up front. You don’t walk up to someone and first thing ask them what the fuck is the matter with them, although you could. I could.

I opened my mouth, and what ended up coming out was:

“What’s your name?”

What did I say? What’s your name?

Without moving, Medusa mask said two words.

“Dog Scream.”

The voice that came out from inside the mask was all wrong. It was tinny and flat, like it was coming through a police radio, but it wasn’t muffled by the mask. There was nothing about that voice that had been affected by the mask. The voice from inside the mask was not mechanical, but it was flat and tinny—sharp, not muffled but sharp—so that I heard the words crisply, without any possibility of being wrong. And that quick answer in that weird voice yanked my heart up into my mouth. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I think I just stared. After a moment, they turned and shoved the branch down into a plastic garbage can, then bent over to tear up more rattling, dry stuff.

I left them there, like that. Ignoring me. I found my way back to my room—luckily my Aunt wasn’t around, she was napping or something—and sat down on my bed. My hands were shaking. Maybe he had one of those voice box things you get when you... after throat surgery or...

Does throat surgery make you change your name? To “Dog Scream”?