'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…
