Pluto King

Pluto was probably born, he celebrated his birthday whatever day was most convenient for him. He had no ID because he didn’t know what country he was from. He didn’t know what year he was born.

He once explained this to police, somewhere in Mongolia he thinks, he said he once decided he liked hitchhiking, but he forgot where he’d come from after a while. He explained his brain blocked memories that hurt, the police suggested sending him to a psychiatric hospital, it didn’t help.

Being no one was a very comfortable thing to be, Pluto had given up on trying to unlock the memories his brain had kept from him, they probably weren’t that important, what he did remembered hurt, like a flame on skin, like someone tried to melt his flesh off his body, and then he remembered gold.

Her name was not Miss Honey, but she reminded him of the character, and he forgot her real name, she was his case worker, or therapist, or social worker, one of those. He remembered she called him Xander, he couldn’t remember why though.

Miss Honey had given Pluto books about space, he fell in love with the small non-planets, maybe that was why he was called Xander, because he re-named himself after the most famous dwarf planet of all, Pluto… Or maybe that memory was false, who knows.

Pluto would hop in strangers cars and leave, he couldn’t be caught because he was barely a person. Pluto King was the creature on the outskirts of the city, the flicker in the corner of your eye, the hint of a memory you swear you once knew. Pluto King was no human, he was unlike any that you will ever see again…