The Wish Master
I forgot my best friend’s birthday for the third year in a row. Not by a little. By eleven days. I discovered it the same way I always do — through a social media memory that appeared on my phone like an accusation. There was a photo of us from four years ago, arms around … Read more
Something shifted in the way people celebrate birthdays after 2024. I noticed it first at a birthday dinner I attended for a close friend turning thirty-five. There were no balloons. No printed banners. No Instagram backdrop with oversized letters spelling out the guest of honour’s age in gold. Just a long table, good food, candles … Read more
I turned thirty in a hospital waiting room. Not mine — my father’s. He had been admitted two days before my 30th Birthday and the timing was what it was. I sat in a plastic chair under fluorescent lights, eating a vending machine sandwich, watching the clock tick past midnight into the morning of my … Read more