All of the stars...

They all seem infected with a vivaciousness that isn't common in our compound, and there are more smiles on their faces than I've ever seen at once. And yet as I watch them, I feel more intensely than ever the knowledge that I'm not one of them. For most, birthdays are a kind of countdown to the end, the ticking clock of a dwindling life. For me, birthdays are notches on a timeline. Will I grow tired of parties one day? Will my birthday become meaningless? I imagine myself years from now, maybe at my hundredth birthday, looking all the way back to my twenty seventh. How will I possibly be happy, remembering the light in my mother's eyes? The swiftness of my brothers steps as he dances? The way my father stands on edge of the park, smiling in that vague, absent way of his? The scene shifts and blues my imagination. As if brushed away by some invisible broom, these people whom I've known my entire life disappear. The courtyard is empty, bare, covered in decaying leaves. I imagine it being deserted, with everyone dead and gone and only me left in the shadows.