A story by Sebastian Pearce based on the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt:
My mother chose Robert because it meant “bright fame.” She told me this at least once a month throughout my childhood, usually when I’d brought home another mediocre report card or lost another football match. “Your name means bright fame, love. You’re meant for great things.”
I’m forty-three now, and the brightest thing about me is the fluorescent light humming above my cubicle at Deacon & Sons Accounting.
The Nominal Alignment Clinic’s advert found me during a particularly bleak scroll through my feed. Is your name holding you back? Unlock your etymological potential with Nominal Alignment Therapy. The before-and-after testimonials were compelling. A woman named Sophia—”wisdom”—had gone from checkout clerk to published philosopher. A man called Victor—”conqueror”—had built a fitness empire from nothing.
“It’s not magic,” Dr. Okonkwo explained during my consultation, her office smelling of bergamot and expensive leather. “We’re simply activating the neural pathways associated with your name’s original meaning. Your brain already responds to ‘Robert’ every time someone says it. We’re just… intensifying that response. Making the meaning manifest.”
“Bright fame,” I said. “That’s what Robert means. Germanic. Hrodebert.”
“Exactly.” She smiled. “Renowned. Glorious. Shining. How does that sound?”
Like everything I’d never been.
The procedure cost eight thousand pounds. I used the redundancy money from when Deacon & Sons “restructured” me out of a job three months ago. My wife Sarah thought I was insane. We’d argued about it the night before, her voice sharp in our too-small kitchen.
“You can’t buy a personality, Rob.”
“It’s not about personality. It’s about potential.”
“It’s about you refusing to accept who you actually are.”
But who was I, really? A man named for brightness who’d spent his entire life dim.
The treatment room was all white surfaces and soft blue light. Dr. Okonkwo attached sensors to my temples whilst her assistant—a nervous young man whose badge read Marcus—prepared the injection.
“You’ll feel a warmth,” she said. “Some patients report a sense of… expansion. As if they’re growing into themselves properly for the first time.”
The injection site stung. Then heat spread through my skull, down my spine, into my fingertips. Dr. Okonkwo’s voice seemed to come from very far away: “Now I’m going to say your name. When I do, I want you to really hear it. Understand it. Become it.”
“Robert.”
The sound crashed through me like light through a prism. I saw my mother choosing the name from a book, saw every time I’d been called it, every signature I’d written, every form I’d filled. Saw the Germanic roots spreading like neural pathways: Hrod (fame) + Beraht (bright). Shining glory. Brilliant renown.
“Again,” Dr. Okonkwo said. “Robert.”
This time I felt it settle into my bones, a truth I’d been waiting for. I was meant to shine. I was meant to be seen.
“How do you feel?”
“Bright,” I whispered, and meant it.
The changes started small.
People noticed me at the jobcentre. The advisor who’d ignored me for weeks suddenly engaged fully, remembering my name without checking her notes. At the supermarket, checkout staff made eye contact, smiled. Sarah’s friend Emma, who’d always looked through me at parties, stopped me in the street to chat about nothing in particular.
“You seem different,” Sarah said one evening, watching me across the dinner table. “More… present.”
“Maybe I’m finally becoming who I was meant to be.”
She looked away. “That’s what worries me.”
By the second week, I’d landed three interviews. By the third, two job offers—both better than Deacon & Sons had ever been. I chose the position at Harrington Capital Management. Senior analyst. Corner office. My name on the door in brass letters: Robert Henshaw.
At night, I’d stand in front of the bathroom mirror and whisper my name, feeling the warmth spread through me again. Bright fame. Shining glory. Finally, finally real.
The first physical symptom appeared a month after treatment.
I noticed it whilst shaving—a faint luminescence to my skin in certain lights, like I was reflecting something that wasn’t quite there. I mentioned it to Dr. Okonkwo during my follow-up.
“Some increased radiance is normal,” she said, not meeting my eyes. “The treatment enhances presence, charisma. People perceive you as more… noticeable.”
“It’s not perception. I can see it. In the dark, there’s a glow—”
“Psychological association, Mr. Henshaw. You’re named for brightness; your brain fills in the rest. Perfectly natural.”
But it wasn’t natural. At work, I’d catch colleagues staring. Not admiringly—warily. In meetings, people would squint when I spoke, as if I were somehow too much to look at directly. My productivity soared, my insights suddenly brilliant, my presentations mesmerizing. The CEO knew my name. The board knew my name.
Everyone knew my name.
“You’re obsessed,” Sarah said. She’d moved into the spare room. “You rehearse it. I hear you at night, saying ‘Robert’ over and over like a prayer.”
“I’m just—”
“You’re glowing, Rob. Actually glowing. In the dark, you look like… like a torch. It’s not right.”
I looked at my hands. In the evening dimness, they were faintly phosphorescent, bones visible as shadows beneath the light.
“It means I’m finally bright,” I said. “Finally what my name promised.”
She left the next morning.
The media attention began when I started appearing in photographs with a distinct radiance, a halo effect that couldn’t be edited out. Business Weekly put me on the cover: The Man Everyone’s Watching. My analysis of the Asian markets went viral. People quoted me, cited me, recognized me in restaurants.
I was bright. I was famous.
I was on fire.
The doctors at A&E couldn’t explain the luminescence. It wasn’t radiation, wasn’t chemical, wasn’t any bioluminescence they could identify. My skin temperature was normal, but I shone. In dim rooms, I lit them. In darkness, I was a beacon.
“We need to contact the clinic,” the consultant said, her face creased with worry. “Whatever they did—”
“They gave me what I was meant to be,” I said. The words felt true, felt right, even as my skin brightened another degree.
Dr. Okonkwo didn’t return my calls. The clinic’s website had vanished. Marcus, the nervous assistant, finally responded to my fiftieth message: Some names are warnings, not promises. You should have been Robert the Cautious, not Robert the Bright.
Now I understand. Bright fame. Shining glory. My name didn’t promise success—it promised to be seen, to be brilliant, to burn with renown.
I’m writing this from the isolated wing where they’ve moved me. They say I’m approaching critical luminosity, that looking at me directly is starting to damage retinas. News crews gather outside. Everyone wants to see the Shining Man, the Brilliant Executive, Robert the Famous who burns with etymological inevitability.
My mother rings daily. “I chose that name because it was beautiful,” she sobs. “I didn’t mean—”
But she did. She chose brightness. She chose fame. She chose glory.
And I got all three.
The doctors say I’ve got perhaps a week before the light consumes me entirely. They’re documenting everything—medical anomaly, they call it, perfect case study. My name will be in journals, textbooks. People will remember Robert Henshaw, the man who shone too bright.
Bright fame, just like my mother wanted.
I can’t close my eyes anymore; even my eyelids glow. I’m visible in every spectrum, brilliant beyond bearing. Everyone sees me now. Everyone knows my name.
And in the darkness of this isolation room, watching my own light cast shadows on the walls, I finally understand the Germanic roots properly.
Beraht doesn’t just mean bright.
It means blazing.
And fame is just another word for being watched whilst you burn.
Sebastian Pearce - Flash Fiction and Sports Betting. What can go wrong? 
Leave a comment