She wanted to call me Alan Suicide.
What?
It was the strange name of Alan Vega.
Who?
The guy who formed Suicide. Except it was his stage name before the band.
Alan Suicide sounds stupid, admittedly.
It does sound stupid, but I think that’s why she liked it. In the end, Cicero settled for Furio.
After Furio Jesi? I don't see the connection.
Maybe. She thought it made me sound cross. She liked cross.
I didn’t mind changing my name.
Sure, Driss is better than Nigel.
Nigel didn’t sound apocalyptic enough.
I don't know what Driss is supposed to mean.
I think we should call you Dungarees. After, you know, your dungarees.
She wanted to call me Ulrike.
Why did she want you sounding German?
It was after that Baader-Meinhof woman. A mad Marxist-Leninist-Maoist type. Did all these bank robberies and bombings, then hung herself in her cell when she was caught. Actually, she might just have been murdered.
A real role model.
She wrote all these bitchin’ manifestoes, apparently. Cicero was a fan. She used to quote this Ulrike Meinhof poem. Something about her head exploding. About being controlled remotely. And pissing her soul of her body. And some raging aggression without outlet.
Sounds just like Cicero’s cup of tea.
So I insisted on keeping my own name.
Which actually sounds like a nickname, which is the funny thing: Kitten. Who names their child, Kitten? And really, you're much more of an Ulrike than a Kitten.
Why did she call you Shiva?
Shiva’s one fuck of a cool god. He’s like the king of cool gods. He has a necklace of skulls. And his skin is purple. And he wears this tiger skin. And the river Ganges, like, flows from his locks. And he’s a great dancer. The number one dancer in heaven. No one dances like Shiva. All the gods are mesmerised when they see Shiva’s dancing. All the other gods worship him and think he’s the GOAT.
Isn’t he worshipped via a giant cock?
The divine phallus. Full of divine spunk. Which contains within it the essence of the entire cosmos. And the phallus rests upon a linga. Which is the giant cosmic cunt. It’s about the union of man and woman, Shiva and Shakti which makes existence possible.
So why did she name you after Shiva?
I don’t know. Irony, I guess.
Okay then, why did she call you, Fiver?
Some prophetic rabbit from Watership Down. A runt.
Prophetic?
Sure. Fiver has these visions. He can see into the future. He knows his warren is going to be destroyed – that the fields will run with rabbit blood.
Cicero was giving us a clue …
And he can possess other rabbits. Or at least he could in the TV series. His eyes glow silver when that happens.
Can you possess other people, Fiver?
No.
Have you tried?
Fiver looks more like banjo boy in Deliverance. What was his name?
He didn't have a name. Just banjo boy.
Work in Progress 