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sperm was found to be Ann’s. Every sperm in that big crowd knew in his or her heart that Ann was not going to make it.
    They sang in unison:
    Zero is the probability for the slowest Ann
    To reach Eliamma’s egg, that is for sure.
    You or I might get close to the egg, God willing,
    But not Ann, not in this life, that’s for sure!
    Let her and members of this mating club know,
    This is a game of survival of the fittest!
    Their song reached a crescendo. All of them were dancing a mating dance simultaneously, trying to outrun each other at the same time, with the ultimate goal of reaching Eliamma’s egg. These dwarfs, 750 million in number, far more than the Indian population at that time, far too small (micrometers in size) to be seen by the naked eye, transformed the uterus into an orchestra hall, filling it with their enchanting symphony.
    Each sperm was wearing a tiny white T-shirt. Inscribed on the T-shirt was either X or Y. The X represented the X chromosome that particular sperm was carrying, which would result in a female baby upon successful fertilization. Y, on the other hand, represented a Y chromosome, which would result in a baby boy upon successfully merging with Eliamma’s waiting egg.
    It is not that Ann was totally isolated in the swarm of Varghese Mappila’s sperms. The females in the group, carrying X chromosomes, were sympathetic to Ann and tried to cheer her up to speed her along in the process. “Come on, Ann! Move fast, you girl; you can do it, you can,” they shouted encouragingly to Ann, trying to pull her along with them. The opposing male team of Y chromosome carriers was contemptuous to Ann, and they ridiculed the X chromosome carriers for creating a scene and detouring from the principal task of accomplishing fertilization.
    Far, far away from earth, in the land of heaven, God was watching this incredibly fascinating yet alarming development with amusement and meticulous attention. He lit up a cigarette; sipped on a cup of coffee, and turned off the TV he was watching. He then pulled the window curtain and looked outside and saw his neighbor forgot to empty the trash. While cursing him along with the greenhouse effect and ozone layer depletion, he started watching the terrestrial melodrama. The developments were alarming enough to call for his attention.
    He realized that through his miscalculation of Ann’s sperm velocity, his dream of creating geometry incarnate was going to be thwarted. He did not sit idle. He sprang into action immediately to save Ann. “I am going to save her, if it is the last thing I do; I am going to perform the union of egg and Ann-sperm, if my lifedepended upon it; my grand plans never get fizzled,” God told himself.
    He immediately sent an army of Lilliputian angels of a few micrometers long, 750 million of them, to arrest the aspiring sperms and to escort the slowest sperm to Eliamma’s waiting egg. Only after the microscopic policemen entered the atrium of the uterus and made a mass arrest of the speeding sperms and escorted Ann to the waiting egg did the scene transform decidedly in Ann’s favor. The protest from the Y carriers was earth-shatteringly loud, but the little angel-cops couldn’t care less. Through a crowd of screaming Y carriers and applauding X carriers, Ann-sperm was led to Eliamma’s egg.
    Ann was born, defeating all the sperms that previously danced and sang victoriously. The tables were turned. Revenge was sweet. Survival was not necessarily of the fittest—look at Ann. Through divine intervention, Ann was finally born.
    Ann, though slow in thinking and action, was God’s creation and had her unusual face to prove it. Her siblings used to make fun of her nonstop. She was a constant source of entertainment and embarrassment to them.
    One sister asked her once, “Ann, did you know the sky is up?”
    Ann looked at the sky and is reported to have said, “Oh my God, how true! Sky is up all right!”
    Her sisters and brothers did not need