An Un-birthday

F. Humpty Dumpty

1. "An Un-birthday" – White pawn to 6th row/rank - please do us all a favor and celebrate your un-birthday in a wonderful blog entry (or static item) (<1000 words)

An Un-birthday

An Un-birthday Party

Pookie, the tuxedo cat, stood up at her seat at the head of the long table. Rattling a spoon against her glass tumbler to cut through the noise of conversation, she waited for silence. Surely enough, the buzz faded until only the occasional suppressed cough broke the stillness. Pookie began her speech.

“Today is the Author’s un-birthday,” she began, “and we are gathered here to celebrate the momentous event.” She paused there to allow the import of her words to be realised by her audience. This gave the Veldskoen the chance to voice a correction. Politely, of course. The Veldskoen was never anything but polite.

“It’s everyone’s un-birthday,” he said.

“This is true,” replied Pookie. “But today is the Author’s Antipodes Un-birthday.”

“What’s one o’ them?” asked Grundle, the troll.

“I was about to explain that,” said Pookie. She cleared a space on the table in front of her, dipped a claw in some raspberry preserve, and drew a slightly wobbly circle on the table cloth. “Imagine that this circle is the year,” she said. Dipping the claw again, she placed a big blob at the point on the circle furthest from her.

“This blob is the day of the Author’s birthday.” They all looked at the blob. Now Pookie began to trace the circumference of the circle with a paw, beginning at the blob. “All of the circle is composed of un-birthdays,” she explained. “The circle is made up of un-birthdays, every day being one.” Fascinated by the moving paw (Pookie was incredibly pretty, even down to her little white, gloved paws), everyone nodded their heads.

“Now we get to the Antipodes Un-birthday,” said the cat. “This event occurs only on the day that is at the exact opposite part of the circle from the blob, I mean the birthday.” She pointed at a spot that might be the magic point of the circle.

“But how do we know that exact day?” asked the Veldskoen.

“It is a Geometrical Evasion,” pronounced Pookie. “To find the right day, we must draw a straight line from the blob to the centre of the circle.” She traced an imaginary line across the table cloth. It might not have been perfectly straight but it was close enough for the onlookers to understand what she was doing. “From the centre, we continue the straight line until we hit the circle again.” She did so on the diagram. “This spot,” she said as she indicated the relevant position, “This spot is exactly opposite to the Author’s birthday. It is, in fact, the Author’s Antipodes Un-birthday.”

They all stared at the spot as if expecting a date to appear magically. Nothing happened, so the Veldskoen piped up again. “But how do you know what date that spot is?”

“I worked it out on a calendar,” admitted Pookie. “But it’s definitely today. And we have arrived at the Magical Day of the Author’s Antipodes Un-birthday.”

Everyone nodded as they understood the concept and accepted Pookie’s calculations. The hubbub of conversation began to rise again. Before it could get too loud, the cat spoke again.

“As this is the annual celebration of the Author’s un-birthday,” she said, “I have ensured that the traditional foods are provided. For instance, here,” she indicated an empty plate with a few used candles scattered upon it, “Here we have the un-cake. As you can see, it is particularly un-magnificent, in keeping with the tenor of the day.”

The friends stared at the plate but said nothing.

“Over here,” the cat was pointing at a glass bowl with nothing but a large spoon inside, “we have an un-trifle.”

The attention of the gathering switched to the bowl. Many of the faces were looking rather glum at this point. For a while, Pookie continued to point out celebratory un-items of culinary delight and the expressions on the faces of the audience began to seem ominous.

Suddenly the cat stopped and held up a dainty claw. “Gotcha!” she declared. “It wouldn’t be much of a celebration if all we had was un-food, would it?”

There was a murmur of agreement. Pookie continued, “Why don’t we get all the real food from under the table?”

There were squeals of approval and the room dissolved into joyous chaos as everyone dived from their chairs to disappear under the table, emerging moments later with plates heaped with goodies. The noise of chatter and delight rose to the roof beams.

“I should have known,” said the Author to the cat. “You and your sense of humour. That was a great trick.”

“Meow,” said Pookie, smiling as only a cat can smile.


Word Count: 772