The Echo Chamber

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Who are you?

My name is Evie Steppman.

Where were you born?

Children’s Hospital, Lagos.

When?

2 August 1946.

In any special circumstance?

I was late.

How late?

Two months.

Go on.

I was not ready to emerge after the allotted time. Happy in the womb, free from worldly concerns and the rules of men, I felt no impulse to move on. I possessed the foetal licence — indeed, the prerogative — to gambol. Trembles met with, ‘Do you feel him kick, dear?’ or, ‘Certainly a strong one.’ Hands, ears and lips were pressed to my mother’s stomach. ‘It’s like a factory in there,’ joked my father, ‘I can hear clattering machinery, a baby-construction works.’ I delighted in my formlessness. Half-fish, half-girl — a mermaid — I rolled as if free from gravity. I luxuriated in the confusion. Such licensed disorder.

[Pause.]

How did your belated arrival affect your life?

It killed my mother.

Yes?

It caused my father to lose his faith in Progress.

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