“If your Lordship should consider that these observations may disgust or scandalize the learned, I earnestly beg your Lordship to regard them as private and to publish or destroy them as your Lordship sees fit.” – Anton van Leeuwenhoek

van Leeuwenhoek was the first person to study microbial organisms from his local pond in great detail in the 17th century. He developed his own macro camera aka the compound microscope! He was the first person to witness the blood flow in capillaries. All chaste subjects! But his colleagues egged him on to venture beyond the prevailing ethics of the time. He finally came around to the idea and examined his own ejaculation.

Life is rife with speculations, but especially so during his time. Some theories suggested that tiny pre-formed humans were nestled inside the sperm cells. Even Leeuwenhoek himself was skeptical about the ‘blasphemous’ experiments. Hence, the above disclaimer while sending the results to the Royal Society. Remember Galileo. Remember Giordano Bruno. 

But Leeuwenhoek was fortunate to be in good company. The same cannot be said of sperm cells. They have to fulfill their destiny in a foreign environment. While they do not have a pre-formed life, they do possess the precursors that can bring life in conjunction with their counterparts. Millions perish, but they need to be successful only once.

Twelve thousand years ago, I might have hoped to go for a nice swim in Death Valley and make a hearty meal out of some crustaceans, not too unlike the organisms studied by Leeuwenhoek. If I were observant enough now, I could have come across the chemical remnants of the species that once called this place a home. An abundance of moisture, and a low-lying basin with no outlet made for a flourishing environment in a sub-tropical climate. But the tide changes with time. A host of geological factors that led to increasingly arid climate choked the pluvial lakes on their own minerals. Now, on a clear and warm evening,  I walk among the neat, geometrically energy-efficient alkali crust left behind from ages of desiccation. 

And on rare years, as thunderstorms bring rain to the valley, I see the tessellations disappear in a salty slush. I see before me a memory of what once was. 

The next morning, I hike up and away from the tessellated hexagons. With the elevation as my guide, the intricate patterns in the salt flat, the alluvial fans from the dried-up lake bed, the residuum of a plethora of species that was, the dirt and dust and mud in the this Land of Little Rain– all coalesced into a green oval spermatozoon.

A camouflage of biological life, waiting with the elements. For the tide to turn again. For the Tüpippüh to flourish once more.

(adapted from original writing in 2021)