A Life Well Filed: The Remarkable Journey of JOHN HENRY DOE
A biography, of sorts
JOHN HENRY DOE arrived in the world approximately one week after John Henry drew his first breath, no party. John Henry came with considerable fanfare – lungs, opinions, auburn hair, and an immediate and non-negotiable demand for attention, and a huge party upon his arrival to the family home. JOHN HENRY DOE arrived rather more quietly: on a form, via a triplicate of an application, dispatched from a government office in the city after John Henry’s mother and father had dutifully provided an “application” for the registration of John Henry’s successful delivery event – within the required sixty days, as the form instructed, because the State does not like to be kept waiting for paperwork, even when the subject of that paperwork has only just figured out how to breathe.
Nobody threw a party when JOHN HENRY DOE eventually arrived at the family home.
From the very beginning JOHN HENRY DOE demonstrated the qualities that would define a long and distinguished career: an extraordinary capacity for stillness, a complete absence of needs, and an uncanny ability to fit inside a manila folder.
The early years were spent in the care of John Henry’s mother, who kept JOHN HENRY DOE in a small cardboard box alongside the receipts, the warranty for the refrigerator, and a letter from the bank that nobody had gotten around to reading. JOHN HENRY DOE did not complain. JOHN HENRY DOE never complained. It was, in retrospect, one of the few reliable qualities the construct possessed.
There were occasions of brief excitement. A trip to the post office in 1965, when John Henry needed to be enrolled in something and somebody said they would need the certificate. JOHN HENRY DOE was produced, squinted at by a woman behind a counter, a form stamped, and JOHN HENRY DOE was returned to the box. Back to the refrigerator receipts. Back to the darkness.
School was navigated entirely without JOHN HENRY DOE’s direct involvement. The teachers called the roll using JOHN DOE. John Henry answered, no biggy he thought. Nobody examined whether the boy answering and the construct on the forms were the same things. That question, it turned out, would not be asked with seriousness for a very long time.
When John Henry finished school and announced he was going to university, his mother pressed the cardboard box into his hands with the gravity of a woman passing down a family heirloom. “Take your certificate,” she said. It was not clear whether she meant JOHN HENRY DOE specifically or the general collection of documents that had accumulated around it over the years. John Henry took them all, because that seemed easier than sorting through them. Do what Mum says, much easier that way.
JOHN HENRY DOE thus began its university years. They were not glamorous. Student accommodation offered a filing system consisting of a single drawer jammed with takeaway menus, an overdue electricity notice, and three pens that did not work. JOHN HENRY DOE was placed in the drawer and largely forgotten, except on those special occasions when the construct was required to prove that John Henry existed – which, from the system’s perspective, he apparently could not do without it.
This was a recurring theme. John Henry could walk into a room, introduce himself, shake hands, and order a coffee, but none of that constituted proof of existence in any way the system recognised. JOHN HENRY DOE, however – a piece of paper that had never walked anywhere, never introduced itself, never ordered anything – was considered definitive. The system found this entirely sensible.
After university came employment, and with employment came filing. JOHN HENRY DOE graduated from the kitchen drawer to a proper manila folder in a proper filing cabinet, which represented, objectively, the pinnacle of the construct’s residential career. There was even a label on the folder. The label said “Important Documents.” JOHN HENRY DOE had arrived.
Over the decades that followed JOHN HENRY DOE was produced at intervals, each occasion briefly significant and immediately forgotten. A mortgage. A passport application. A statutory declaration for something nobody could afterwards remember. Each time JOHN HENRY DOE emerged, struck by the light, was scrutinised by someone who appeared to find it entirely satisfactory, and was returned to the folder. The folder was returned to the cabinet. The cabinet was moved twice – once in 1994 when John Henry changed houses, and once in 2007 when the filing cabinet was briefly considered surplus to requirements before being reprieved at the last moment.
JOHN HENRY DOE outlasted two cats, one dog, a marriage, a divorce, three cars, and a remarkable number of appliances. It did not age. It did not require feeding. It asked nothing of anyone. In its own way, it was the perfect companion – present when needed, silent always, content to wait in the dark for as long as necessary.
Eventually John Henry, having spent considerable time examining exactly what JOHN HENRY DOE was and was not, reached the unremarkable but consequential conclusion that the construct was not him. It had never been him. It was a piece of paper the State had made shortly after he was born, without asking, titled resembling his name, plus the family name, without consent, and quietly installed in his life in the expectation that he would carry it around for the rest of his days, answering for it whenever the system called its title.
He had done so, faithfully, for decades.
He stopped.
JOHN HENRY DOE was returned, formally and with appropriate documentation, to its creator. The State received it without ceremony, which was fitting, since it had created it without ceremony. The filing cabinet now holds other things. The folder has been repurposed.
JOHN HENRY DOE is survived by John Henry, who is doing very well and remains, as he always was, entirely real.
Mors civilis. Civil death.
Rest in the appropriate filing system.
This biographical note is provided in the spirit of aequitas and mild amusement, and does not constitute legal advice.
Last Updated 3 months ago
Views: 107