How Ian Martin First Saw the Light of Day

Bang in the middle of the century, on the stroke of midnight, as the moon rose above the African bush, my mother shrieked in agonized panic, raised her knees and parted her thighs, and began to expel me from her womb. I had been perfectly content where I was and would have preferred to remain there, but the rules and regulations governing obstetric procedures decreed otherwise. On entering the world I opened my eyes and gasped in horror. For a brief instant, my life lay before me, and in that instant, I understood the impossibility of ever going back. I let out an anguished bellow of rage. And just to confirm that the clock was already ticking, Mrs Hildagonda De Groot, housekeeper cum midwife, slapped my face, held me up by my ankles, shook me, and then hacked through my umbilical cord with a meat cleaver.

(Adapted from The Life of Henry Effit.)

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