Night comes. School work lays on the side table, pigeon-holed into “I’ll do it later,” until the last possible moment. As is my natural tendency.

“Have you ever considered working ahead so that you’ll be less stressed?” she asks.

I turn. She’s idly tapping away on a white-cased phone, stretched lazily across my bed. I glance back at my computer, an irritated knot at the corner of my lips.

“It gets done all the same regardless, right? So long as I plan accordingly, nothing should go wrong,” I reply.

“And yet, sometimes it does.”

“And yet, sometimes it does,” I agree, “Hey, mind if I ask something?”

“Sure, go ahead,” she puts down the phone for a moment.

I turn, looking at her closely. She blinks with the bright piercing eyes, no longer staring at her phone screen. I consider the hilarity of my words and speak them anyway.

“Are you a god?”

“Yes,” she nods.

“Huh.”

That does seem to explain why I was not concerned about her presence. Or how society seemed to accept her as a normal addition to people’s lives without too much hesitance. Still, I didn’t understand why a god would appear solely to me and not others. Or why it took me so long to ponder such a question.

“Usually there are more questions that follow afterwards. Sometimes there’s screaming and such. You seem to be accepting this relatively well.”

I shrug, “Perhaps it’s an extension of some godly power.”

“Technically a goddess. I am mostly female. Do you want any miracles done?” a smirk, “Some people have asked for miracles. Sometimes I grant them.”

“Not particularly.”

“Not even the slightest miracle? I could make you rich. I could help you take over the world within a few months. I could help you seduce anyone. Or I could seduce you, if you’d like.”

I cock her head at her, “At what cost?”

She offers a small smile in return.

“You’re asking the right questions. And trust me, it’s something you’re unwilling to pay.”

“That’s what I assumed.”

“The answer to question 4A on your problem set is 2xy^3 dx wedge product dy by the way. Free of charge.”

I glance at the computer and do some quick backwards estimation. She’s correct.

“Yeah, but how do I get there?”

“Figure it out.”

The math scribbles slowly become more coherent into a messy semblance of an answer.

“You know, you’re awfully sarcastic for a goddess. Surely you have something more interesting to do than sit at my side all the time.”

“I choose to be here, actually.”

“Are there other goddesses handling whatever deictic work there is to be done?”

“No, just me. And there is nothing to be done. I have no requirements or expectations. I do not need to eat, sleep, or feed. I do not need to reproduce or care for children. I do not seek pleasure or intrigue. I am immortal and selectively unobservable. I am present to you because I choose to be present to you. There is no ‘why me?’ to it. I simply choose this, and you need not concern yourself for its reasons.”

“Sure,”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I continue working on mathematics. A few scrapped problems later, I finish. It isn’t my best work, but I don’t have the motivation to put in further effort. Maybe I could make up for it later. I close the worn notebook and cap my pen. It shuts with a satisfying click.

I look back towards the goddess.

“Do you have a name?”

“No. Choose one for me.”

The reply is instantaneous. She doesn’t even put down her phone.

I blink. Then pause to contemplate for a moment. Eyebrows consciously scrunch. I run through a few possibilities before quickly coming to a stop. This was the wrong line of thinking.

“I can’t. I don’t know enough about you. And it’s your name, not mine. I don’t have the right to make that decision for you.”

“Then I shall go without one,” she states simply.

“You can’t choose to not have a name.”

“Why not?” the goddess asks.

“Everyone has a name. Having a name is a quintessential part of a person’s identity. Everyone has a name. It is what defines themselves as an individual compared to any old rock or tree or bush or sheet of paper. There is no linguistic way to distinguish you from a different goddess then.”

“You can give a name to rocks as well as any of the other aforementioned objects.”

“Still!”

“Fine, call me ‘the goddess then.’”

“What?”

“It is highly unlikely that you will ever meet any other deity in your lifetime. In most scenarios, only I can accurately be ‘the goddess’. In a way better than many others, it is unique.”

“That’s not a name, that’s a descriptor.”

“Well, I still choose for it to be my name. Names can be defined by oneself. You said that yourself… although I don’t necessarily agree that it’s true. Parents decide the name of their children. People decide the name of their pets. Although in both cases, ownership is involved. You don't believe yourself to own me, and thus following your logic, it’s not your decision to create a name, it is mine. And, I chose that one. I choose to be called ‘the goddess’ and by nothing else,” she gives a hint of a smile, “Shall I ask for people to capitalize the letters to make it more name-like for your sake? It can be our personal nickname.”

I say nothing for a few moments. She isn’t wrong.

The goddess takes the opportunity to barrel onward.

“Still, I am open to the suggestion of taking a nickname, with a semblance of my personal permission. Obviously, to your displeasure, I may insist that ‘the goddess’ is the only nickname you may refer to me as, although I am not so spiteful. If it makes you feel better, I will take suggestions, pretend to contemplate, then select one of your choosing. This is not a revolutionary idea. People make their own names on the internet all the time. Pseudonyms are common. People even ask one another for help thinking up a pseudonym. Names are not necessarily defined by one-self even when one’s physical wellbeing is self-belonging.”

I can’t fault the logic.

“What has anyone else referred to you as?”

“I have never had the need to take a name before. And other deities do not speak in a language that you physically can, nor would you find any approximate translations to be a name and not a descriptor.”

“Have you ever felt like a name resonated with you?”

“I have not.”

“Then can you say any name at random?”

“God does not roll dice.”

“Damn.”

More silence and contemplation ensues. She smiles more as the mental gears grind.

She speaks up first. “You know that names are not binding. You may refer to me as ‘the goddess’ one day, then ‘the divine being’ the next. You are welcome to change my name as you please.”

“Then that begins to defeat the purpose of a name. Names should be rigid and generally constant. You start to lose solidity within your identity if you change it too often. Most people undergo no more than one name change due to some drastic life-changing event, if at all.”

“Fair. Then why don’t I take your name?”

“You can’t do that!” I say a little too quickly.

“Why not? That doesn’t change, and many individuals have the same name. Given the distribution and first names and surnames, many different individuals are bound to have the same name.”

“But it’s mine. That’s just confusing. We’re not the same person, and I have a boy’s name. And you’re obviously not male—”

“Your statement has a few flaws. Technically I don’t have a defined gender,” she interrupts, “But yes, currently, and for the majority of time, female. Continue.”

“Yes, okay, whatever. Just… pick something else, not a name that I know of personally or closely, just a name for you…”

“The goddess,” she quips with a smirk.

“Not that— Look, I just don’t know you well enough yet. I don’t know what you do, or what you are. I am not sure if you are the goddess of anything, or if there are other deities I should be concerned with. Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about being plunged into this new perspective. Hell, I’m concerned that I’m not more concerned.”

“All generally true statements,” she muses.

“So yeah, I don’t know what to name you,” I finish.

“Elysium.”

“Pardon?”

“Call me Elysium,” she says, “I think it’s a fitting descriptor of my true nature.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t pick—”

“I cannot choose randomly, although I can certainly still choose.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“Then we wouldn’t have this amusing conversation.”