by John C.A. Manley | April 16, 2024
Being that it's my birthday today, I thought I’d address an accusation made by an online troll claiming that my online biography is as fake as Obama’s birth certificate:
“Your biography reads like a cartoon, just like any other LARP’er we have to deal with in fake media events. Three doctors for your birth alone, peeing after your See Section… Who do you actually think will believe your fiction if they have half a brain?”
Here’s the part from my bio that my critic finds so unreal:
“I was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1978 to Thomas and Barbara Manley. It wasn’t easy on my mother. It took three doctors, one C-section and lots of morphine. The doctors names were John, Clark and Anthony. Soon after being born I peed in Dr. John’s face. To make it up to him, my parents decided to call me John. Clark and Anthony became my middle names. I’ve always felt relief I didn’t pee in Clark’s face (as I’m not fond of the name), and rather regretted I didn’t aim for Anthony.”
An emergency C-section involving multiple doctors, while rather expensive, hardly seems fantastical (especially since it was all covered by government healthcare).
But my critic insists: “Spooks do not get more obvious than this, pissing in our faces as did little John on one of his 3 doctor’s when being being born* (Bethlehem?) out of a See Section…”
How does this guy associate a twentieth-century hospital in Toronto with a first-century manger in Bethlehem? His ability to discern reality seems as reliable as his spelling.
Of course, I must confess I have no memory of my birth. I’m relying on my mother’s testimony and the following photographic evidence:
The Sri Lankan doctor with the long hair and beard (who looks like a sadhu in a white lab coat) is Dr. Anthony. The Brit in blue is Dr. John. The third photo isn't a transgender Dr. Clark, but the attending nurse.
Alas, if my aim had been a little better, I’d be known today as Anthony J.C. Manley (and no longer confused with John P. Manley — Canada's eighth deputy prime minister).
Apill 18, 2024 Correction: My mother has since informed me that while three doctors were involved with my birth, only Dr. Anthony was in attendance for the C-section. Dr. John came on the scene the following day to give me a medical check-up (wherein I peed in his face). And Dr. Clark had to perform follow-up surgery on my mother a few days after the C-section. I apologize for the error. I was quite young at the time.
John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/
