08/06/2023
This Story Has Already Been Told.
Have you ever wondered why babies are born clueless?
The glass table reflected the bright globe hanging on the ceiling. Mei’s eyes were expectant as if there was something about to happen. She spoke, “Baby, can you hear me?”
There was no response, not even an echo. Despite being the only one there, questionable types of equipment filled the room–ones that required expertise to decipher. Mei was tied to the seat while several straps were attached to her stomach.
She took a deep breath, scared about the experiment being a failure. She took a deep breath, scared about the experiment being a failure.
“Baby, can you hear me?” She asked again. She clenched her fist and mumbled some prayers.
“Where am I?” A feathery voice asked back. But for the graveyard silence, Mei wouldn’t have heard.
Mei hesitated. She was confused, but ebullience prevailed.
“Oh, good! You can hear me. I’m your mother.” She replied.
Who was she talking to?
Science had grown wings and was able to cause a conversation between a mother and her foetus. Mei was a pregnant woman in a special lab run by Dr. Ying. Dr. Ying had promised her that she would give birth to a baby replica of her, and the process involved a conversation test.
The conversation went on with the mother and foetus. The foetus described the mother's heartbeat as a rumble of thunder and said it was floating in a water-filled place.
“That’s called the ami—ani—amniotic fluid. Hard word, I know. I just learned it today, too,” she clarified.
“I like this place. I want to stay here forever,” the foetus cried.
“Ha, you can’t do that! You’ve got to be born.” Mei said and grimaced.
“No! It’s scary out there.” The foetus was not lying; Mei knew this too.
An elegant woman in flay trousers and a floral blouse walked in with a stethoscope on her neck. She pulled her lab coat from the hanger and put it on slowly as she walked towards Mei.
Mei continues her conversation with the foetus. “Let’s call you Huan.”
“Happiness?”
“Yes, my love. That’s what I felt when I got here.” She smiled and had a brief reverie. “I was once like you, except that I don’t remember anything from being in my mama’s belly. Is it dark in there?”
“There’s a faint light coming from outside. It’s a reddish-orange glow, like the color of the sky when the sun is just setting behind the mountain at Xitao Village.” Huan’s response came as a surprise to Mei.
“You remember Xitao? That’s where I was born!” Her eyes, dilated and her mouth opened wide. Dr. Ying looked at her, smiled, and looked away; she scrutinized the readings on a display monitor in the lab.
“I do know what you look like. I even know what you looked like as a child,” Huan continued.
“I don’t know what to say–”
“Mama, I sense someone else out there with you.”
“Yes, that’s Dr. Ying. She designed this machine that allows us to talk to each other, even though you can’t speak while floating in amniotic fluid.”
Surprisingly, Huan described Dr. Ying. Wow!
“Hello there!” Dr. Ying said
“Hi … I think you study brains?” Huan said.
“Yes, dear. It’s neuroscience. My study entails how brains create thoughts and construct memories.” Dr. Ying said with pride and adjusted her glasses.
A human brain possesses enormous information storage capacity, with more neurons than there are stars in the Milky Way. But most of the brain’s capacity seems unused.
Dr. Ying’s specialty is studying the parts that lay fallow. She and her team found that the brain parts assumed to be blank hold immense information. Only recently did they discover that it is memories from ancestors.
Dr. Ying, consumed with pride went on. “Memory inheritance is very common across different species. For example, many cognitive patterns we call “instincts”—such as a spider’s knowledge of how to weave a web or a bee’s understanding of how to construct a hive—are just inherited memories.”
Dr. Ying’s thesis, after the novel discovery of memory inheritance in humans, was that it was more complete than in other species. Unlike other attributes passed on through genetic codes, she believed that the amount of information involved in memory inheritance is too high; instead, the memories are coded at the atomic level in the DNA through quantum states in the atoms. She mentioned that it involves the study of quantum biology. How brilliant, but confusing!
“Dr., my baby doesn’t want to be born. It says it’s too scary,” Mei said. The worry in her voice was vivid, but she still found it funny.
Mei struggled until the past year when she met Dr. Ying. She ran away from her hometown, Xitao, where there was no hope for personal growth. She felt maltreated
Huan went on to narrate Mei’s life to her. It mentioned her endless job rotation in different cities, all the jobs migrant labourers did. When things got tough, Mei had to pick through the trash for recyclables that she could sell.
The foetus knew everything about its mother, Mei–Her childhood, struggles, ups and downs; everything.
Dr. Ming had told Mei that they had developed a technique to modify the genes in a fertilized egg and activate the dormant inherited memories. She believed the next generation would be able to achieve more by building on their inheritance.
Mei had lived a scary life and wanted nothing like it for her child. So, she agreed to the doctor’s promise of a better life for her child who’d have her view of life and be able to manoeuvre easily.
“Do we know who my father is?” Huan asked the doctor.
“The s***m donor requested that his identity be kept secret, and your mother agreed,” replied Dr. Ying. “–in reality, his identity is insignificant. All your memories are of your mother.”
“Why?” Curious foetus asked.
“Despite having the facilities, we don’t know the consequences of having two people’s memories simultaneously active in a single mind.”
Mei sighed and chipped in, “You don’t know the consequences of activating just my memories either.”
The conversation went well.
About a year later, Dr. Ying stands before a grave, solemn. There’s a baby in her hand but not Mei’s child.
Something went wrong!
I promise to tell you, STAY TUNED.
