Darkness.
Obliviousness.
And then…

Muffled screaming. Sounds, varied by different pitches and accents. Everything, everything is moving in jarred, rhythmic patterns. Should I go along with this – should I resist? No time to think, no way to think, the time is coming, faster now, it’s coming, make a choice, never had a choice –

Finally. I’m free. I’m released. I can open my eyes and ears and take in my first breath of oxygen. I’ve been born.



I’m crying. Crying? Is that what you call this… <i>wetness</i>
on my face? The noise coming from –from me?

<i>Yes. Yes, that’s it.</i> The world I’ve been born into answers. I’m surrounded by soft, firm arms, the bodies of other beings, the blank boards keeping us in, the door separating me from the outside, the outside where life awaits me. It’s beckoning to me. It sings its song, and is at once joined with another voice. It’s that woman, the one holding me. They sing different words, but the melody is the same. I feel my face tighten in a pleasant feeling.

I’m smiling.



There’s so much to learn. The voice of the world keeps telling me what everything is about, about why that woman is offering me her <i>breast</i>, why those other <i>people</i> seem so <i>happy</i> to be holding me. I raise my arms to them, always smiling. They sing, although nothing can be compared with the universe’s song. They laugh, a sound that echoes pleasantly in my ears. I feel happy. I’m with my <i>family</i>.

I want to know more. I want to be brought out of this room and go see the outside, where life waits for me, patiently.

<i>I want to go outside</i>.

<i>Be patient, my dear. Your time will come.</i>

Time. It heaves and tugs in irregular waves, sometimes making things go by so fast I am scared, sometimes leaving things to take place forever. I want to know more about this concept of time. It seems very important, much like family and life and the world and the universe

I’m tired now. I open my mouth and let out what is called a yawn. It lets my family know that I no longer feel awake. I want to sleep.

They place me gently down onto something soft and warm. There is something coming from them, something very strange and it’s something the world isn’t really telling me.

<i>It’s called love.</i> It says simply.

Love. Love… Love and time and life and world and universe and existence and

I feel sleep washing over me like a blanketed warm wave, echoed by the song that the universe sings to every newborn living being. <i>Welcome to the world, my dear.</i>