Birthday Wish

By Dawayne Johnson

In the dark hour of the night, I feel the breeze against my skin from the late autumn night.

The moon shines against my face, creating a shallow glow as I close my eyes and bite my tongue to hold in the tears slipping from my eyes. I whimper, muffled by the sealing of my lips and the hands over my mouth. I feel the pain in my stomach, the deep, sharp, agonizing pain inside of me.

I can feel it morphing into a creature almost like a snake with no way to know its beginning or end. It moves throughout my body through my intestines, up my spine, climbing my ribs, and reaching the back of my skull. As it flows throughout my body, I remember your touch, the weight of your words, the look of your eyes as you said things I could only repeat in my mind.

I can feel myself being drained by whatever is inside me. This creature flows throughout my body under my skin, under my muscle, deeper than the bone. It feels as if it is engraving itself into my soul, feeding off me and won’t stop even after there is no more of me left.

As it spreads outward from my core, I understand the picture it paints, the language it is writing in my genetic code. The more it feeds on me, the less I feel, yet the more I remember of you, of mom and dad, of those nights behind the gas station that left more than marks and scars on my skin. Of the monsters under my bed or in the closet, maybe they have been feeding on me for much longer than I'd like to admit; maybe they’ve been feeding on me since I was born.

The feeling of normal has been so unfamiliar; it's started spreading through my brain into my eyes now. It's showing me all of you, Grandma, Aunt Jane, Kylie, you're all surrounding the cake.

That’s right, that’s why I came out here to see the sun rise for my birthday.

But that cake… The candles are all wrong; that's not the flavor I asked for, and it’s not the shape I wanted. All I wanted was my cake, the one with the chocolate icing and strawberries on top, just like Mom used to make, but instead it’s vanilla, and the strawberries are rotten and smushed all around the cake. The creature has reached my mouth, sewing the skin of my lips together. I try to scream out for help, but it’s too late now; my screams are muffled not by my hands but are silenced by my lips. You all smile at me as if nothing is wrong, and you cut me a big slice.

Everyone joins hands and mushes the rotten slice of vanilla cake right where my mouth would be.

The cake dissolves into this skin-like fluid as it wraps around my eyes and seals my eyelids shut. You all begin to sing " Happy Birthday " to me. As the singing continues, you get louder and louder.

“ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR…” Then the fluid silences the singing, filling my ears until the ears sink into my head like an anchor into the sea. It has swallowed me. No there is no more it. It is me, I am it.

I have no sight, no hearing, and no smell, only touch and taste. I feel the wet concrete of the balcony that once supported my feet. I no longer have feet; I no longer have arms or hands. I am a pile of something unknown; the feeling of flesh feels like smooth, hairless skin. My taste buds spread against the bottom of my “body,” leaving saliva wherever I trail. This is what I have become.

I have no sense of direction, only know that I am moving. I try to cry, but there are no eyelids or even eyes to cry out of. I feel a hand touch my body, rub my skin. I cannot see, but I know it’s you; at least it feels like how you used to hold me whenever I would cry. The hand sinks into my flesh. I taste the nail polish I try to stop, but I can’t reverse it. I move up the arm to the chest until I swallow the head. I reflect on what I have just done. I have swallowed someone who has just tried to help me. I don't even know their name or their face, only their taste, a taste that I've craved for a long time, a taste that I could remember the second it touched my tongue, the taste of a chocolate cake with strawberry on top.