Found in Seatback

Two lined, folded sheets of paper torn out of a notebook or diary, covered with columns of names.

I thought on first recovering them from the aircraft seatback, where I found them tucked between the in-flight magazine and the barf bag, that they were the handiwork of a small girl, one who may have occupied herself during the dull, hour-long express flight by copying her own name over and over again, trying on her signature like an accessory. Stretching out her fingers in it like a long silk glove, tugging a little here and there.

Then I noticed the surety of the hand, the confident tails and swoops, the level hyphens, the solid footings -- functional, not experimental. This is a penmanship being worn, not tried on. Then the variations in the names caught my eye. Aha. The author is indeed puzzling something out, but it's not the script, it's the name.

I think this is an artifact left by an expectant mother, one sure of her faculties but a little understandably daunted by the role which she will soon assume. She is assembling a name for her baby, a girl -- another thing of which she is sure.

Makayla
Makayla Grace-Jenice
Makayla Jenice-Grace
Makayla Jenice-Olivia
Makayla Jenise-Olivia
Makayla Lyn-Olivia

and a few lines down, on the back, the hyphen vanishes --

Makayla Janice Olivia

-- the reappears

Makayla Grace-

.

She is playing with syllables, with meter, with sound, seeking the perfect tone --

Makayla Soria-Grace

-- and texture, dabbling with a set of colors for a bit --

Makayla Grace-Imani

-- then fearlessly abandoning it for different set, cautiously, with patience, with repetition --

M
Makenzi Joy-Noelle
Makenzi Joy-Noelle
Makenzi Christina-Joy

-- and finally tearing out two sheets that show her work and leaving them behind, stepping off the aircraft into a new place with its own puzzles to be worked out, as well as the ones she has carried with her.