The Sperm Donor

'Well, look who I ran into,'crowed Coincidence.
'Please,'flirted Fate, 'this was meant to be.'
― Joseph Gordon-Levitt, The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, Vol. 1

There were only sixteen of us in the group, even so, I knew there was no way I going to remember everyone’s name. Yes, we had each labeled our chest with a sticky tag upon arrival, but some people had used a plain blue biro that I couldn’t see from the other side of the table, while another had the sort of hand-writing that made it almost impossible to tell an a from and e, or whether that was double-r or an m.

I don’t know about you, but I reckon there’s something a bit creepy about a stranger surreptitiously peering at your left breast while you’re speaking to them. And let’s face it, those sticky tags have a habit of losing their stick pretty damn quickly. The seminar is rarely half over before Hadley the coffee cup joins the crowd by the sink, and someone’s right loafer has picked up Galatea.

Tell us something memorable about yourself. Perhaps choose something you’re proud of, something unique or funny, something you’re happy for us to remember you by.

It was almost my turn.  Two more introductions, then me.

The bitch inside my head slammed words against my skull like a squash ball thudding on the grubby court walls: dull, plain, old, trite, drab, sad, tame, bland—forgettable. You’re eminently forgettable…

Still, somehow, the voice of the quietly spoken young woman to my right began to plink through the echoing fog haze of my panic. Right after she’d explained that she worked in a highly specific and, frankly, to me quite intimidating field, she added something like this:

 And… well… I was donor conceived, and my search for the man who is my biological father has been quite public. Some of you might have seen the documentary about it.  And…well… actually… it turns out that my paternal grandfather is a rather famous Australian academic …

As she named him, I began to see the likeness. Not to the famous academic. To his son.

To the guy I’d known at uni.
To an anonymous student who gave sperm in exchange for money.

To the smiling bearded guy with the unnervingly blue eyes who’d shared a house with one of my friends and who, for several years, I’d thought was kind of gorgeous.

To her biological father.

I guess it shouldn’t have felt weird. But it did.

It felt like one of those life-imitating-art moments.

I was swallowed by images of nights sharing lentil and vegie mash in mismatched bowls. Secondhand chairs around a rickety table. Energetic, idealistic, expansive conversations fuelled by our passion for our studies. And cheap wine.

 
Anything was possible.

Everything was unknown.

I was not who I am now.

Not who I am now, but no more memorable then than now.

He wouldn’t remember me.

I will have left no impression.

No sticky tag on his memory.

Tell us something memorable about yourself… something you’re happy for us to remember you by…