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Birthday Greetings

October 7, 2016 4 Comments

Birthday Greetings
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“Happy birthday, I miss you.”

The handwriting is small, the letters carefully formed. No name is signed to the note in the otherwise blank card, just a tiny heart. No return address, no stamp. Rain has been falling heavily for days, and yet the envelope is dry and unwrinkled.

I imagine the sender walking in the winter grey, feet cold and fingers numb, the card kept safe from the elements inside a coat. It is an act of love, redolent with regret. A beautiful, but wasted, act. It’s not my birthday and I have only lived here a week.

Addressee unknown.

By Angela J. Maher

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Carrick says

    October 7, 2016 at 12:17 pm

    Quite lovely, Angela. However, I don’t think the story needed that last sentence. It was redundant and sounded like an Elvis’ lyric.

    Reply
  2. exiledprospero says

    October 7, 2016 at 4:12 pm

    I felt a genuine pang of pathos reading about a birthday card gone astray, a card that someone might have cosseted under a gray coat and kept sheltered from the rain, only to finally have it end up in the cold, unfeeling hands of a stranger.

    Reply
  3. Carrick says

    October 8, 2016 at 11:37 am

    Exiledprospero
    The card did not end up in “the cold unfeeling hands of a stranger” but in the hands of a puzzled stranger……………

    Reply
  4. David D says

    October 9, 2016 at 9:16 am

    Compelling, desperate, and empty. Well done.

    Reply

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