You see, the egg cell is shrouded by three layers of follicular cells and to eat away into this fortress requires the teeth of at least a dozen sperms. The overarching strategy is for a soldier to be able to switch roles effortlessly. One moment, a sperm is suicidal; and the next moment, it is not. Every soldier has to wrestle and tear away the follicular cells that hide comely in the crater shaped lunar lining of the yolk. Then, one sperm that ultimately crouches through the creases of the target’s walls has to immediately suspend its suicidal tendencies and garb the cloak of a primogenitor.
Therefore, we, sperms, share a symbiotic relationship with each other. Only one sperm eventually fertilises the egg cell; but for that to happen, an army of thousands is mobilised. We snuggle our bulbous heads along the epithelial walls of female reproductive tract. Pensively, we wriggle with our feeble tails ticking like the minute hand of a wall clock.
It is time. I can always tell when it is time. The great ovum, haploid female, is ready to be fertilised. The chemical encouragement was feeble yesterday; it was premature to mobilise our efforts. But today, since the dawn, there has been an incessant drone of the chemical spree. We have been thoroughly trained to handle this situation. Every mission, as we are told from the day of our conscription, is the first as well as the last. We last on average, 5 days post coitus. The reproductive tract of a female is like a sleeping venomous anaconda’s innards; when we step inside, we are fully aware of the fact that there is no returning. Ahead of us, waiting in the dark clutches, is death. Our training prepares us for this; our mental fortitude is systematically built from the day we are born.
We, sperms, are supine and have been admitted into the army through a long and tedious process of rigorous physical training. We are the naval fleet of this mission. It was rather hush-hush in the beginning, but now every little one with a frail tail is aware of the rather dictatorial mission – evolution. As a part of this programme, for optimal utilisation of the resources, it was designed by our great grandfathers that we divide our nucleus in such a way that the resulting nuclei is left with only half the original number of chromosomes. They called it ‘operation meiosis’; we still wear the patented tattoo on the membranous back of our necks.
Word is that, originally, our cousins, the air force, were also dragged under this umbrella of meiosis. Our cousins are a curious lot; they inhabit pollen and the air fleet, flowering plants, are painted a distinct green colour. They are rather eccentric; except for our genetic material, we have very little in common. We are the motile ones; we swim towards the target ourselves. But our cousins, the fat bastards, act immotile and have to be carried in their many frilled capsules called pollen. If not for the mission, I can’t think of any force on the planet that could have united us. The mission was a powerful dictum. However, the philosophy ringed with one last episode before it acquired its present potent stature.
The last military unrest was recorded to have occurred as far back in time as 2 billion years. It all began with the revolt of the repulsive algae. You see, these primitive chlorophyll containing amorphous life forms meddled with our philosophy. Soon, in time, the air force had given up on optimisation. They espoused mitosis in the end. Mitosis allowed them to divide their nucleus into nuclei with same number of chromosomes. They were flowing in rivers of affluence alright! The air fleet’s decisions furrowed our eyebrows but the fact remained that the naval fleet could not have afforded that luxury. So it is that today, guided by the beacons of meiosis, we shovelled our way through the viscous semen, towards the target, the follicular egg cell.
“It’s a rickety ride. Is there a story behind this too” I asked the hair lipped fellow who was swimming beside me. Between bouts of incessant coughing, exposing the mitochondrial neck, he explained “our naval fleet is illimitable. We are redundant; the army can turn around a thousand soldiers’ strong fleet in about a week’s time.” Now, filleting his tail sideways to gain a forward thrust, he clarified “whereas, the target, egg cell, is produced only limited number of times in a life time. So it is only reasonable to assume that our fleet was designed to fertilise as effectively as possible, for a failure can be costly for the mission, evolution,” he was dying, I could tell from the weight of chemical compounds he was carrying on his back. However, he seemed unnaturally adamant to finish “So, our fleet consists of the most able, agile, nimble tailed, pointy headed, serpentine necked, soldiers.”
It’s a thirteen pronged strategy; while a dozen of us nip away at the follicular walls of the egg cell and weaken it, the thirteenth one eventually crawls inside. And, cowering about like whining dogs, we, the rest twelve, simply wait for an imminent death.
By the time, we reached the fallopian tube; the hair lipped sperm had died. I was in the company of a good twenty other soldiers. About six of them, Olympic swimmers as I recalled from our training, had reached about one and a half day earlier. They must have swum within twenty minutes post coitus. ‘Unfortunate for these buggers, the fallopian tube has not popped out the egg cell yet’ I thought. But I was wrong. It all ended rather abruptly; the lifelong training and the sense of adventure fizzled out palely. I had expected a tuff tussle between the soldiers. Apparently, the egg was fertilised before even the Olympic swimmers got there. Perhaps there was a secret special force that was trained to reach before the first of the Olympics got here.
You see, the Olympic swimmers had been swimming patiently for over a day and were bumping into each other’s head. They looked tired, dazed and sleepy; with their cheeks propped limply on the stout shoulders, they dropped their heads like the arching branches of road side trees.
In any case, the mission was successful. And going back to our training days, I must die a happy soldier. I personally had about three more days of life left in me. I turned my attention towards a pensive soldier who was presently looping his tail around his neck to hang himself upside down. Ah! He looked so miserable. He needed assistance in dying. ‘Pity’ I thought.
“Can we just swim back out,” I asked and the pensive soldier rolled his eyes all over me, measured me up before responding “swim back you say. Swim back.”
I detected a touch of sarcasm in his voice. I only wanted to keep his company. “No. I don’t mean to swim back to the base,” as I said this, it occurred to me, how out rightly lame it sounded. After days of training, this is what it had come to. My resolve was slowly buckling; centuries of patriotic fervour melted away as walls of death closed around me. I felt so immensely dreadful that I could have given anything for a whiff of the base -to be between all my peers as we sang our anthems day in day out. I madly clawed at the walls around me; I wept and crept, wriggled and wrestled; all I wanted at the moment was the company of my old pals. Death, we were told in the training, was to open doors to martyrdom. But my mind was presently home to the thoughts of a saviour. A super soldier who would swim back to the base with all of our tails tightly wrapped around his membranous neck.
Presently, my train of thought was interrupted.
“The uterine lining is now at its thickest best. You see, when an egg is popped into the tube, naturally the fortress heaves with healthy lining. This is designed to maximise the chances of a successful fertilisation. The walls will weaken eventually, and melt away. But that will be ten days later, and we won’t be alive to see that happen”
So it was all guided by the overarching mission’s success. The navy was designed to succeed as a fleet. There was no room for an individual. Three days later, I died inside the claustrophobic uterus. And about ten days later, my microscopic corpse was washed out alongside the flakes of menstruated uterine lining.
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