“Soon after gestation I discovered that outside impressions experienced by my mother, Mrs. J, were filtering down to me in an understandable form. It may be that I was specially suited to receive these impressions but I think not; rather, I suspect that all embryos and fetuses take in, to some degree, the sights, sounds, and even smells experienced by their carriers. I suspect that due to some quirk of development or abnormally high intellectual sophistication for my age, I was able to better interpret the deluge of sensory data flooding into my form. Thus I learned of the world.
“During the first few weeks of pregnancy my mother, Mrs. J, began to read romantic novels and watch violent television programs. Little of value was learned. For a period of time—from the fourteenth week through the twentieth—she embarked on a reading program covering all areas of birth and child care, a few popular medical and scientific works, and one psychology text of questionable merit. In the course of reading one of the popular medical texts she (and I) came upon the case of one Roger deCovernaire, who resisted birth so successfully that he was not born until ten weeks after labor began. When birth finally ensued, his mother—the Countess deCovernaire—succumbed, but Roger entered the world in perfect health and lived to the ripe age of ninety. As a sidelight, it is interesting to note that his life’s work was in the architectural design and building of railway tunnels.
“It is from Roger deCovernaire that I take my name, at best a symbolic gesture since I have resisted birth far more successfully than he was able to. The fact is that the bleak medical views espoused in the literature read by Mrs. J coupled with the world view presented by the romantic novels, television programs, and newscasts she assimilated, strengthened my resolve to prevent, if at all possible, my expulsion into the outer world. By yoking the knowledge gleaned from those few books with a few reasonable chemical and biological deductions, I was able to successfully prevent my release.
“I will continue to do so.
“I think you will agree with me that I have chosen the safer course. Since I may be considered a scientific and medical curiosity, it would be to your greater interest to continue to treat Mrs. J with the utmost deference and to provide her with every comfort. I intend to devote myself to the study of my environment—the womb—and to the processes that surround the conception and gestation of the human fetus.
“I do have one request. At the completion of my nine-month term, my access to Mrs. J’s information and sensory systems was severed—a natural occurrence, no doubt, since at that time the fetus would normally be thrust into the outside world and begin to use its own sensory systems. Though this may be a natural and predictable event, it leaves me, as it were, in the dark. I would ask that at the time in my physical development when I am able to accommodate certain aids from my continued study, these items be provided; I will make ample provision for their passage to me. I thank you in advance.
“There will be periodic communications from me; I will work out some sort of schedule with the young intern who has formed such an accommodating relationship with me—I’d like his superiors, if they are here, to take note of his achievements and to grant him the courtesy and advancement he deserves.
“According to the neurologist Freud, whom I’m afraid I consider to be something of a buffoon, most if not all of you suffer from a repressed wish to return to the womb; if there are any truths in this belief, I find it significant to note that I should therefore be able to avoid most, if not all, traumas of human existence since I have not left the womb in the first place.
“That’s all for the moment, if you’ll excuse me. I’m tired.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then a sudden collective cheer went up from all those present. They were so delighted by the fantastic, carnival-like spectacle that they had witnessed that it took all of the security people aided by a good number of hospital staff to keep the crowd from lifting Mrs. J up over their head, fetal burden and all, and parading her around the room and out into the street. The media representatives were especially happy about the episode, given the bountiful reportage possibilities it presented.
The young intern was, of course, immediately promoted and given a staff of his own. Things proceeded smoothly for Roger in the womb, and every four weeks thereafter, he gave a short report and new observations. Mrs. J, who was now completely content with watching the television that was over her head, was providing more than enough materials than Roger needed to maintain his health and foster his growth; she was maintaining a huge protein and fat-rich diet that Roger had developed, and had assumed balloon-like proportions.
Despite constant and growing pressures from religious, cultural, political, medical, scientific, and media groups, Roger’s privacy was strictly maintained by the young intern. Every two months a statement based on Roger’s periodic reports was released to the press. The first few of Roger’s statements were relatively pedestrian dealing with such matters as the format for future pronouncements and the correct procedures involved. Then there followed a number of statements dealing with the womb itself, its structure and characteristics. An occasional message dealt with a physical characteristic of Roger: at the age of one he discussed the impossibility of crawling in the womb; at the age of two-and-one-half the frustrations caused by the urge to walk counteracted the inhibiting characteristics of the placenta.
At the age of three Roger made his first request for materials, asking that a small reading lamp along with a copy of Spinoza’s Ethics be passed in to him. Roger made room in the womb for these items that had been waterproofed to resist the effects of amniotic fluid and made provisions for them to be passed in; he did not, however, allow the young intern (now, young doctor) a view, even brief, of the womb. Other texts, among them works by Blake and a novel by Henry James (which was immediately passed out again) were soon requested; before long a constant supply of books flowed in and out of the womb. Roger went so far as to solicit a small pillow to prop his head up in order to make reading for long periods easier. It was discovered that Roger was a bit far-sighted and reading glasses were designed through a long and complicated process, though the glasses, in the end, worked perfectly.
By the age of nine Roger found himself completely absorbed by the problems of conception, gestation, and birth; and he provided his young doctor-companion with long philosophical tracts on the nurturing, as well as the expulsion from the womb, of the human fetus. He also provided detailed drawings, rendered in a somewhat cramped style, of the interior of the womb. He began to keep a notebook of his studies (waterproofed, of course), and spoke glowingly of his progress.
Due to the secrecy surrounding Roger, as well as to his meditative way of life, the phenomenon of Roger in the womb had the status of a cultural event of ever-expanding and ever-distorted proportions. The Cult of the Womb, a rapidly spreading movement, which had formed shortly after Roger’s first message was released, held Roger in near-deitic esteem; its members lived most of their lives in artificial, self-supportive womb structures, unhindered by thoughts of or contact with the outside world. Another cult, the Rogerists, a purely religious sect, declared Roger the unborn second son of God, and devoted their lives to a truly Byzantine set of devotions. Political, medical, and publishing groups were putting ever-increasing pressure on him for time and attention.
A growing anti-Roger group was in evidence at this time, also. This company encompassed a wide spectrum of types. The general consensus among them was that Roger was either the devil (in a supra-fetal form) or at least an unworthy leftist coward unable to face the world as it is. An attempt on Mrs. J’s life was even made by one of the more bizarre sectors of this assemblage.