The past, whether we like it or not, possesses the present in everything we do, see, and read.  The beginning of anything, an untraceable origin, is influenced by the past.  If everything that had ever happened never happened, no beginnings that we have ever heard of would have begun the way that they did.  Every minute detail of the past brings to us a present that has been influenced by that past.  For instance, legends of old, handed down through story and song, possess entire cultures, and mold them into what they are now, in our present.  The hero’s journey, something we have learned about for years in our schooling, has wildly impacted the way we read and write, and has given a platform upon which to build, evidenced in many of our texts, especially in John Barth’s Night Sea Journey. 

              There is a hero in the story, the sperm, fighting towards the destination of its journey, attributed in the title.  While some may say that it isn’t about the destination so much as it is the journey, full of trials and tribulations and obstacles, for the hero of this story and any other, the destination is still the mark that the hero has been successful, and completed the task assigned, and maybe grown from it.  The sperm is in a “sea”, an immeasurable and seemingly unconquerable place.  The journey must be trying, swimming through countless fallen soldiers, thinking that that may also come to be his fate, rendering the journey fruitless. “The heartless zeal of our (departed) leaders, like the blind ambition and good cheer of my own youth, appalls me now; for the death of my comrades I am inconsolable. If the night-sea journey has justification, it is not for us swimmers to discover it.”

            The narrator, our special sperm that makes it to his final destination, has no notable qualities, lending himself to the everyman idea, that anyone (or anything) can accomplish what they have set out to do.  He is an unlikely protagonist, not expecting his success in the least, and almost demeaning himself in the end as the fittest to survive, “…(fitness meaning, in my experience, nothing more than survival-ability, a talent whose only demonstration is the fact of survival, but whose chief ingredients seem to be strength, guile, callousness)…”, calling it a “poor irony”.  The sperm’s unexpected success is bittersweet, as millions of his comrades have fallen in this journey, and yet this sperm is the one to survive, the last man standing.  To have participated in what is essentially genocide, and to have survived, is the burden now placed upon this hero, even as Odysseus, the most obvious of the past’s heroes, saw his crew die before his eyes in Homer’s Odyssey.

            The past, and traditions that have been handed down through our time and this sperm’s time, influence how this particular sperm handles his situation.  Early on, the sperm questions the purpose, his origins and his own existence.  “Is the journey my invention? Do the night, the sea, exist at all, I ask myself, apart from my experience of them? Do I myself exist, or is this a dream? Sometimes I wonder. And if I am, who am I? The Heritage I supposedly transport? But how can I be both vessel and contents?” and later, “"'You only swim once.' Why bother, then?” a question many on their journey have asked themselves in countless situations. 

            As the sperm reaches his destination, he is successful, as the hero’s journey should end.  Burdened with thoughts and new purpose, the sperm is successful, and has grown.  This particular sperm, the unlikely hero of our story, who undergoes the trials and tribulations of any mythological hero, reaches his bewitching destination, his life, his purpose, his love.

Red

Robin pulled her headphones out to a muffled yell coming from the kitchen of the small apartment where she lived with her mother (but only for a few months longer, until she could leave). “Honey! Robin, come here!” She let out a sigh, throwing her red hair over her shoulder and tossing her headphones down and extricating herself from the nest she’d created in the corner of her bed. In the kitchen, her mother was holding a bottle of wine and a Tupperware full of cupcakes.  “Sweetie, could you bring this to your grandmother? I’ve still got some work to do, and the car’s out of gas. Are you okay with walking? I know it’s raining, but I’d be wonderfully grateful.”

            “Yeah, mom.  Here, I’ll just walk over with this bottle of wine and get an MIP for my troubles,” Robin said, grimacing.  She didn’t feel like walking to her grandmother’s musty apartment.  It was stuffy, and smelled like medicine and old lady.   

            “Oh, hush.  Put it in your purse, it won’t be a problem. She’s just lonely, and I don’t have the time,” Robin’s mother said, sighing.  “I know you don’t want to go, honey, but it would be a huge help.  I don’t want her to think we’ve forgotten about her…”

            Robin sighed dejectedly and handed her mother her purse.  While her mom was occupied fitting the bottle and Tupperware in the bag, Robin shot her boyfriend, Evan, a text.  “Hey, heading to gram’s. Meet me there?”  Once her mother was done Tetris-ing her purse, she grabbed it back, throwing it over her shoulder as she put her headphones back in her ears.  She strode out the door, not quite happy with the outcome, but pleased enough with the opportunity to see Evan.  Maybe it wouldn’t suck that badly. 

            Robin slammed the door on the way out, turning her music up and throwing her hood up.  She cut through a few alleyways, trying to speed up her trip so she could sneak a visit with Evan in before heading back home.  About halfway to her grandmother’s apartment, though, tingles shot down her back.  She felt like someone was watching her, but when she turned to look, of course, no one was there.  Feeling anxious, she popped out onto a main street.  As she rounded the corner though, a man in a black hoodie smoothly turned with her, keeping her stride. 

            “Hey, Red. Why’re you out here alone on such a rainy night?” he asked, eyeing her with a wolfish grin.  In the neighborhood she was in, Robin was used to catcalls on the street, and it wasn’t the first time she’d heard ‘Hey, Red’, so she chose to ignore him. But, upon closer inspection, she saw that he was quite handsome, with a crooked smile and a devilish mischief in his eyes, hidden by a dark mess of hair.  He kept pace with her swift walk, and added “I’m John.  John Smith.  Care to give me a name?”

            Robin snorted.  “Robin,” she snapped, still not taking to his charm, but taking her headphones out of her ears.

            “Ahh, Robin.  A red-breasted bird for a lovely red girl.  Out for a walk, or out for a purpose?” he asked, showing an unnerving wolfish grin for the second time. 
            Because she was almost to her destination, Robin saw no harm in telling the handsome stranger what she was doing.  “I’m going to see my grandmother, drop some things off with her, you know.  Being a good granddaughter and such.”

            “I could tag along, keep a pretty girl safe on a walk through a bad part of town, if you wanted.” John said.  John Smith? Could he have picked a more obvious fake name? Robin chuckled.  She’d heard worse and more threatening before.
            “Sure, if you want to see me to my grandmother’s, go for it.” He was charming, handsome.  He seemed exciting and intriguing, and who was she to tell him off? So she fell into stride with this stranger, feeling not a bit uneasy, but excited. He seemed dangerous, dark, but in a good way.  Roguish, maybe. 
            Her destination was coming up on the right, and she wasn’t fancying bidding this handsome stranger good night. “Want to come up with me?” She said, forgetting all about her plans with Evan. 
            He grinned that wolfish grin again.  “I’d love to,” he said.  “The better to get to know you!” Robin laughed, thinking how much her grandmother would like this new stranger. 
            They turned into the doorway, and walked up the steps to her grandmother’s apartment.  It was three stories up, not too many stairs for anyone really.  Robin knocked on her grandmother’s door.  “Grandma! It’s Robin! I’ve got cupcakes, and I’ve brought a friend!”
            “Oh my dear! Is it Evan? He’s a nice boy.” Her grandmother said as the door swung open.  But, as Robin laid eyes on her grandmother, she felt a cool blade against her neck.  John, or whatever his name actually was, was behind her, holding her in place, as she stood terrified. 

            “I’m not Evan,” he said.  “I just need money.  She’s a nice girl, and I wouldn’t wanna hurt Red, but I need money,” gasped the stranger with the wolfish grin.  He was darker now, more ominous.  Robin’s grandmother shrieked. 

            “Honey, don’t move.  I have a purse, I can give you money! It’s not much, but leave her be!” Her hands were shaking.  But, as Robin’s grandmother left to go grab her purse and money for the deceiving stranger, Robin felt the blade leave her neck alongside a dull THUMP.  She whipped around, and there was Evan, ever her knight in shining armor, and “John” slumped on the floor.

            “Figured I’d meet you here,” he said sheepishly.   “Thought I could be of some help?”