The Ejaculation That Would Eventually Result in the Birth of One Morris Pembroke
By: Matthew Querzoli
Tags: Humor, Writing, Baby, Short Story, Fiction

The Ejaculation That Would Eventually Result in the Birth of One Morris Pembroke

If sperm had eyes, Adrian Pembroke’s little wrigglers would have seen nothing but darkness when he came inside Georgia Fenton.

If sperm had ears, they might have heard a muffled, languishing groan of their depositor as he lay, sweaty and breathless, on top of a similarly sweaty, out-of-breath withdrawer.

If sperm could smell, they would have been able to smell that of a spilled, sour beer — the tangy odour of Georgia Fenton’s healthy, slightly acidic vagina.

However, since they were sperm, not only they did not possess a number of sensory receptors, but they were also deprived of the consciousness to fathom just what they were missing out on in the sensory department. No — these sperm were our regular old sperm, your garden variety semen, your regular old wrigglers.

And because of this, they did express delivery only.

So they swam.

All 250 million or so of then began to swim on to destination or death.

A suicide mission; each martyr carrying a veritable payload of DNA to deliver.

Among their incomprehension of how they could have possibly ended up being spurted from one mammal to another, was also the unfathomable ‘Why?’ If they could have understood and communicated their understanding before being shunted from the safety of the testicles and into the unknown, they might have asked that. A briefing might have been conducted, at the very least. Farewells planned and prepared for. Friends and family offered goodbyes. Tears shed for those about to shoot straight for that Holy Egg.

Risks would have been communicated too about the expectation of smooth sailing. To eject, expecting the vaginal canal, and instead bursting into bright light and falling onto a wet floor only to gurgle down a drain. Or to be almost stoppered, like a cork in a bottle, straight into a tissue or sock. A full-stop, planted too soon. And in that unfamiliar environment, without destination in sight, all succumbing to a fruitless fizzle.

Was false hope any better? To find themselves in darkness, but without having to fight gravity, sliding down instead of up, only to be met with a splash into a stomach full of hydrochloric acid and other bacteria. Not even a chance to begin wriggling — snuffed out on impact.

These.

These were the lucky ones. Out of all of Adrian Pembroke’s penile squirts, since the very first (at eleven, into his pyjama pants) to the most recent (two hours before his date with Georgia Fenton), the vast majority were ill-fated Somme charges. “Over the top” was the call, the whistle was the sound, and certain death was the result.

On the three instances his wrigglers had had the chance, they were twice crushed into oblivion by Levonorgestral, which had meant a thickening of cervical mucus in that Thermopylaen pass of the cervix, and once mowed down by a Plan B pill.

Not tonight.

Tonight, Georgia Fenton’s menstrual cycle was in perfect alignment. There was seminal fluid aplenty to neutralise much of the vaginal acidity. The physical obstacles of the cervix, uterus and Fallopian tubes were overcome, one by one.

And through that pinprick of a gap — the uterotubal junction — only the rockstars limped through, mere millimetres from that goal.

The proximity, now so alluring, meant these previous members of Adrian Pembroke’s testes reached fertilisation capacity. Simply put, these brave, autonomous colonisers went hyperactive.

Like an adrenaline shot straight to the heart, those remaining sperm all charged toward the egg.

Of the mere dozens that made it, only one would deliver the payload.

That lucky little wriggler was sperm number 156,933,496. If his brethren had had the sufficient mental capacity and imagination to bestow a name upon this champion of reproduction, they probably would have called him Marty.

Marty entered the acrosome reaction, which helped to break down the egg cell’s door. A fumble, a grasp, a squeeze inside, and Marty does his duty.

Their nuclei fuse. Marty perishes, or is perhaps reborn along with the egg, into a collection of cells that starts to multiply and grow and will one day be thrust into blistering, blinding light.

Something from nothing?

Not quite, but close.