"A Birthday Wish" by Samantha Carr

The wax on Ella's birthday candles dripped onto the cake, causing the number three to bend forward as though wielding an invisible power. At any moment, it could collapse; perhaps it would collide with the zero and melt into one blob. Which age would she prefer it to be? Anything but thirty. It had been a difficult year, and she couldn’t help but think back to her birthday the year before when things were happier and easier.

But her friends stared at her expectantly; they wanted her to make a wish. Her boyfriend, Ethan, nodded at her as if to say, it’s ok; nothing terrible will happen. Yet, he didn’t understand what it meant to her. This was Ella’s first year with a shop-bought celebratory cake. In previous years, her Aunt Amanda would make her a chocolate fudge special with extra ganache. But her aunt had passed away six months ago of ovarian cancer, an almost silent but deadly killer. It was a mere few weeks between her first symptoms of bloating and her death. Ella held back her tears as she thought back to holding the hand of her last living family member.

The wax dripped onto the thick icing again—it was barely visible on the almost plastic-like surface, but if she didn’t make a wish soon, her friends would think she was insane. Somehow, she felt she was betraying the memory of her aunt and all those lovingly prepared special cakes. She closed her eyes and tried to convince herself that it didn’t matter. Birthday wishes weren’t real anyway.

I wish someone from my family was still alive.

She blew out the candles, and everyone cheered. Ethan handed her a mug of sparkling wine, and someone turned up the music. Ella danced around the kitchen, forgetting entirely about her earlier worry about the cake and her wish. At some point, one of her friends sliced up the cake, and she tried a bite, but even in her drunken state, she felt a pang of grief for her aunt’s baking. She left the part-eaten slice covered in a napkin on the edge of the table.

The following day, Ella woke up in Ethan’s bed alone. She’d hoped their night together might be more memorable, but perhaps they could re-enact the events later. If only she could piece together what had happened after eating a bite of the cake. Maybe the sugar had been too much after all the upset, and of course, the wine. She sat up and sniffed, and she realised she could smell smoke. With that, she realised she could hear the incessant whining of the smoke detector accentuating her headache.

She stumbled out of bed towards the door, surprised to notice that she was fully dressed. Perhaps she’d passed out before any fun last night. But where was Ethan?

The heat burned her eyebrows, leaving a singed smell in her nostrils as she entered the kitchen diner. Laid out on the floor in six perfect lines of five were the party guests, her friends. But she realised quickly that they weren’t sleeping off the alcohol. Smoke poured out of them, and their charred clothes revealed burnt red skin. The only intact thing was their shoes; she screamed as she spotted Ethan’s Converses.

In the kitchen, one person remained singing along to the radio. As she tuned out the ear-piercing smoke alarm, Ella realised the song was Happy Birthday, playing repeatedly. The woman turned around and showed Ella a delicious-looking chocolate fudge cake.

“I see you made your wish, dear,” said Aunt Amanda with a smile that looked totally different from how Ella remembered. She pointed to the bodies, “We won’t need this anymore,” she picked up the napkin with the uneaten cake and threw it into the bin.

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​Samantha lives in Plymouth where she is currently studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Plymouth on the topic of poetry and chronic illness. She writes poetry and short fiction as well as running workshops. Her fiction has been published in Luna Station Quarterly, Fairfield Scribes, Flash Fiction Magazine, and 101 Words. She can be found on the website formerly known as Twitter as @sam_c4rr.