Weekly writing contest -entry

THE BIRTHDAY

Trrnng…..Trrnnng
The alarm rang. Announcing the arrival of another day. Another day to while away .
Except, today was not any day. Today is my birthday. And not just any birthday.
I guess I can call myself an octogenerian now.
I slowly got out of my bed, as slowly as my arthritic knees would allow. They had started complaining a lot now, making me walk slower during my morning walks and making me think twice before I stand up. Well, what can I say, it’s been 7 years since I had both my knees replaced.
I checked my mail. As I usually did every morning for the past 10 years. Ever since I learned to use a computer I have been checking mails every morning as a routine. Not because I expected to receive a mail from someone I knew. Nobody I knew had sent me a mail in the past 10 years. In fact I don’t think anybody I knew knows how to operate a computer let alone send me a mail. No, I checked my mails everyday because it gave me something to do every morning. Something worthwile, other than brushing my teeth set or walking across the hall so that I can walk back across it again. And so even if it was the same old junk mail that I had to check and delete, I checked and deleted it all the same.
But today there was something else. Oh yes, I remembered once again, today was my birthday. And some people were kind enough to remember to wish me. And then I looked closer again, disappointed to find that they were not persons but rather organisations that were wishing me a happy birthday. Organisations with softwares programmed to send people birthday wishes on their birthday.

United National Insurance would like to wish u a very happy birthday.
Lawrence and mayo, your trusted opticals would like to wish you a happy birthday.
Coldlab Pharmaceuticals would like to wish you a happy 80th birthday.

Enough. I deleted them all. I did not need them reminding me what a lonely helpless old man I was on my birthday. I shut down my computer and went out on my usual early morning walk.
‘Good morning,, Mr Rockwood’
‘Good morning’ I wished him back. Dave was the only security of my apartment. At 60, he was a good twenty years younger to me , but still I doubted his sentinel abilities.But then, at least he wished me good morning every morning even if he didn’t wish me a happy birthday today.
And so slowly I walked along the streets like I had walked all these years. Except I was getting slower each day. And fainter in the memories of others until one day I would just faint away. It pained me to know that I had no living relatives. Its been 20 years since my wife had passed away and since then I had been one old lonely man waiting for the days to pass by.

And I expect today to be no diferent. I would finish my walk and get some breakfast at old Jimmy’s. Then I would retire to my room where I would watch some tv for sometime. And then have a little nap before lunch and then…..
‘Hey watch out old man!’
And then MY BIRTHDAY TOOK AN UNEXPECTED TURN.

I turned to see a young boy in a bicycle with a bunch of newspapers in his back. He had veered to avoid an oncoming car only to head straight at me.
‘Watchout!!!!!’ I heard somebody shout before I turned and swung around to avoid being hit by the boy,only to fall head first on to my back.

I opened my eyes slowly to find water splashed all over my face. A woman was standing over me peering into my eyes with a a torch light. She wore a coat, like the doctors did, except that she was much younger than I expected any doctor to be.

‘Are you ok grandpa?’
‘Where am I?’
‘ You are in a hospital. I am the attending resident and you have suffered a mild concussion from the fall you had this morning. I need to ask you a few questions. Is that ok with you grandpa?’
‘I guess it is’
‘What is your name?’
‘John Rockwood’
‘What is your date of birth?’
‘October 10, 1929’
She paused for a while and then asked
‘Do you have any relatives or friends to look after you?’
‘Nope. None alive at least’
‘Do u know where you are?’
‘I think I am in a hospital’
‘Good. You are doing fine. Do you know why you are here?’
‘I think I fell down. And hurt my head. My head still hurts. A bit.’
‘That’s ok. Nothing to worry about. You just have a mild concussion. We’ll have you in observation for today and send you home tomorrow. Have a nice day’ she said with a smile.

What a crappy way to spend one’s birthday. Not that I had any better plans. I wondered what I would have done if I hadn’t had this accident. I would have finished my walk, taking a little longer time than yesterday and gone home to have a small nap after having a small chat with Dave, the security guy. I wanted to ask her how his daughter was doing. She was in college, sophomore year,if I remembered correctly. I would have then had some lunch, a little bit of soup and chicken and maybe some wine to celebrate my birthday and then would sat in front of the tv and whiled away the whole day.
Which is what I am going to do now also, I thought as I was shifted to the ward and placed in bed which was right in front of a tv. There was an old man, around my age on the bed to my right and another middle aged man who had suffered an acute coronary arrest ( whatever that might be) lying on the bed to the left of me.An obese woman wearing a nurse’s apron came up to me and stuck a thermometer down my throat.
‘Mr John right? No temperature. You are absolutely fine. You can be out of here in no time.’she said as a matter of factly.
And then I slept. At least I had nothing to worry about, other than having to spend my birthday in a hospital. With a room of full of strangers. With no one to even wish me a happy birthday. I heard the nurse talking sternly to the man on the left of me. He had to stop smoking it seems. I guess that coronary thing that he had was a heart attack. And he had to stop smoking or else face serious problems. I heard his wife crying quietly next to him. I closed my eyes and slowly went to sleep not wanting to know what the man on my right was here for.
And so this was how I spent my birthday. Getting up to a lethargic day, having sustained a concussion to my old and bald head and spending the rest of the day sleeping in this hospital. Or so I thought.

It was around 10 pm when my BIRTHAY TOOK ANOTHER TURN . The resident who attended to me in the beginning stopped by and gave me a surprise visit.
‘Hello Grandpa, how are you doing?’
‘I am fine thank you. What brings you here?’
‘Thought I ‘l just stop by and see how you are doing.’ Saying so she took the packet that she carried and opened it to reveal a small black forest cake. And she said two words to me which no one had said for the past twenty years.
‘Happy Birthday, grandpa’
Tears started rolling down my eyes as the other people in the ward came over to me and wished me a happy birthday. She had told everybody. Even the plump unfriendly nurse who wished me a happy birthday with a large smile. Even the guy who had suffered a heart ache. I don’t know what she had told them. Maybe she told them, today is that lonely old man’s birthday, so at least wish him to make him happy. I didn’t care what she told them .
She had made me happy.

The End





WORD COUNT-1400