All This Time

That's my name

Nobody reads the condominium's bulletin board nowadays.

Paul Alvarez couldn't really blame his neighbors for not paying attention to it ever since the St. Tropez Court management had launched their online community group last year. This was different from the condo-wide chat group that Mrs. Han, the owner of Ahjummart, had started. The kind owner had her daughter, Ji An, add Paul to the group when he wandered into her shop to buy coffee, making him aware of everything happening in their place more than the bulletin board ever did.

So, there was really no use for the board now. What used to be a huge cork board that spanned one wall of the lobby was now a smaller board hanging by the main doors, only noticeable if one would actually stop and look.

Which was exactly what Paul found himself doing that one Wednesday morning. There, between the announcement for the upcoming association dues deadline and an ad for the juice bar on the sixth floor, was his name.

Courage is the child of Love.

His second name, that is. Not many people knew that his full name was Paul Courage Alvarez, after his parents' idea of naming their children after virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit. This wasn't a problem with sisters because their names still sounded normal and didn't need further explanation whenever they introduced themselves. He was glad that his mother—whose name was Love, making the quote on the poster eerily accurate to his life—had mercy on him by giving him another common name that he used more often.

It wasn't that he didn't like being named Courage. He thought it was kind of cool, actually, and it was a nice random fact for conversations. Not that he has had any good conversations lately, but that's beside the point.

He just wasn't sure if he was worthy of his name.

Paul pulled his phone out to take a picture of the poster, admiring the combination of the clean block lettering and the swirls of the script. He knew practically nothing about calligraphy or art. Still, he could tell that the artist—MJ, written on the corner of the paper—made this with care. And they had enough guts to post it there on their lonely bulletin board, where they had no assurance of people even noticing it.

MJ should at least know that someone had seen it and appreciated it. That was the least he could do, now that he has been here for almost five minutes. Paul walked to the reception desk to ask for a piece of paper, scribbled a quick note, folded it, and pinned the letter to the board.

"Thanks, MJ," he said out loud, more to himself than to anyone else. There weren't a lot of people out this early anyway. He glanced at the poster one more time before exiting the lobby, already feeling a little better than he did when he woke up that morning.