The Melancholy Death of Evil Sperm

Peter is a young boy. Like all naughty boys his age, one night he had a ‘humpy pumpy’ dream and woke up in the morning feeling wet but rather feeling good about himself. He quite liked that dream so much that he started doing it even when he was awake. One day, he learnt that doing it all the time is evil. He was told that he was killing all the sperm. He had no idea what they were talking about, so one day he looked it up in the library and found out what it looks like. He thought they were cute and felt extreme guilt that he had been killing them all this time. He promised himself not do it again. The following night he had another one of those “dreams”. In this dream, he decided to keep them all alive. He tried so hard to save them, but in the end, all of them but one died. He kept this special one in his aquarium.

He woke up the next day feeling the same wetness in his nether region, but was relieved that he had at least saved the life of one. Hastily, he removed all the fishes from his aquarium to keep them from eating him. He couldn’t think of a name for his creation so he just called it Sperm. He knew it’s a stupid name for a pet but that’s how he called him, anyway. He thinks it’s a boy although he’s not quite sure. It is the sperm that fertilizes the egg that will determine the sex of the baby. Some sperm carry the X-chromosome and some sperm carry the Y-chromosome. If an X-chromosome-carrying sperm fertilizes the egg, the baby will be a girl. If a Y-chromosome-carrying sperm fertilizes the egg, the baby will be a boy. The egg is a nonentity. Although they may share the same number of chromosomes, the egg has no influence whatsoever in the determination of gender. He felt smug knowing this.

Each day coming home from school he felt really happy that Sperm was growing really well. All his effort to compete with around 200 million other sperms paid off, and made him really fit and healthy. If he is going to run in the London marathon he would certainly win, only he couldn’t run. What a shame! But he sure could swim: hell, he’d swim the length of the English Channel from Dover to Calais without breaking a sweat. His tail gave him the ability to swim at utmost speed. As weeks and months passed by, little Sperm grew up from teensy tadpole into a whopping malacopterygian monster that Peter decided to take him off from his tiny aquarium and chucked him into the lake where he could swim freely. As always, he would visit him everyday to check how he is and if he is happy with his new home. Peter was balled over one day to learn that Sperm could speak. It knocked his socks off:

“Boy, how did a single tailed coelacanth with hydrocephalic head ever learnt how to talk?”

Peter boy may not know it, but the witty, witty Michael Moore, the scholarly author of “Stupid White Men” and creator of “TV Nation” wrote in his book “Downsize This!” that the sperm can put the best computer chip to shame. He said: “The sperm’s head is densely packed with a ton of genetic information. His midsection, like our bodies, contains the life processes that allow him to stay alive, to move, to do his work.” Wow indeed. Peter had never been happier. Now, he was able to discuss American gun culture, corporate politics and why it’s time for a regime change at Number 10 with his genius pet. One night, he woke up from the wailing wah-wahs of police sirens: there had been reports of sightings of a whale-like monster by the lake. Scenes of terrified women were shown on telly.

A woman alleged that this evil monster jumped off the shallow waters of the lake and chased her.

Early next morning Peter went to the lake and looked for Sperm. He couldn’t find him. He went in the afternoon crying whilst searching for him, but he wasn’t there. Nope. He simply disappeared. In the end, he just presumed his beloved pet died.

It is quite possible that Peter recovered from his depression after a few trips to a head-shrinker and some happy tablets, but the story of Sperm did not end here. As you may all know, millions upon millions of tiny little sperms are helplessly massacred by men. Snuffed out and smothered in tissues, then mercilessly thrown in the bin.

* Silly story inspired by Tim Burton in “The Melancholy Death of Monster Boy & Other Stories” and by Shelley Jackson in “The Melancholy of Anatomy”.