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Moby

David Bennun, Hot Air, Summer 2000

THEY CALLED him Moby from the moment he was born. A tiny homunculus, small for his age even then – too small, they thought, for the formality of going through life as Richard Hall. So they nicknamed him for his ancestor, Herman Melville. Creator of Moby Dick, the Great White Whale. Maybe that was part of the joke, Moby being so very little. From then on, he was always Moby. Moby to his hippie mother. Moby to his academic father, who died when he was two. Moby to the pre-teen companions who smoked marijuana with him and sank the cocktailed contents of their parents' liquor cabinets. Moby even to the unseen ghosts who called to him by name in his Connecticut bedroom.

Total word count of piece: 2736

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