“Happy Birthday!”

Happy Birthday                                                                                         

                                       

                                                                                                              Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday

                                                  Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday

                    Happy Birthday

                                              “Happy   Birthday!”

Happy Birthday

                                               Happy Birthday                                           

                                                                

                                                      Happy Birthday

                                                                                                          

                                                                                                       Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday

- Short story by Purnima Patwardhan

 

It was a bright morning in Santa Barbara, California. The leaves glistened under the golden rays of the sun. The wind chime in the porch moved rhythmically to its music as it responded to the gentle breeze swaying the trees. The birds chirped merrily as if partaking in this joyous ambiance. It was picture perfect, in fact too perfect.

    

      It seemed a perfect day at the Smiths’ residence too. Mr. William Smith, a businessman man in his late forties, had married his high school sweetheart Joanne, a petite, attractive and kind hearted lady, who had given up her teaching profession after Lisa was born. Hugs and kisses were the order of the day as Mr. and Mrs. Smith embraced their only daughter Lisa. It was her thirteenth birthday.

   

      A car pulled over to the driveway, as Christine rushed out to wish her best friend Lisa, a happy birthday. “Hurry, or we’ll be late for school”, Christine’s mother, Mrs. Carlisle, said looking at her watch. Lisa and Christine had been the best of friends for the last eight years since the Smiths’ moved to town.

   

     After a brief but friendly hello,Mrs. Carlisle, reversed the car out of the driveway, and onto the main road leading to their school.

  

     Waving goodbyes, as the car whipped up a cloud of smoke, the expressions on the couples face changed as a feeling of despair and gloom loomed large.

 As they walked into the house, Mr. Smith looked pensive, as Mrs. Smith started to cry. “It’s her thirteenth birthday, William, what are we going to do? Should we have a quiet evening instead of having a party? May be if we just keep her thirteenth birthday celebration to ourselves, it might be better. How can we keep our only child safe? How do we save her from the curse?”

      I don’t know what to do.  Maybe there is no such thing as a curse. Maybe there is nothing to be afraid of, after all. We can only wait and watch…And no, we should not sacrifice her birthday celebration with friends because of our fear of some curse whose very existence we doubt, in the first place! It’s our responsibility to see that Lisa stays out of harm’s way, this evening; we would know that there was no truth to that story. Now, wipe your tears darling, let’s take you to the store and pick up grocery’s for the birthday party this evening, before I head to work.”

 

    With a hug and a half-hearted assurance that ‘everything would be alright,’ the couple got ready to leave for the market. There was a prolonged silence in the car as neither spoke, as their mind took them back in time, to the town where it had all taken place.

    It had been a wonderful and joyous occasion for the Smiths’ and the Burtons at the wedding of their respective children, William and Joanne at the Grand Plaza, in New York. After the wedding, William and Joanne, were to make ‘the big move to the west,’ as the Smiths’ often put it. William was to start his own business, and the opportunities in the west, in Redwood City, a small town close to San Francisco, offered ample untapped opportunities.

A few days after the wedding, the newly weds were all packed and ready to take the flight and head to the west. After arriving into their new home, carefully selected after scrutinising various newspaper advertisements, housing magazines and visiting different homes made available by their Realtor, they chose ‘Green Meadows’, a pretty four-bedroom house built at the top of a hill, with a front lawn and a patio in the backyard, a dozen steps from the house leading to a long driveway. A far cry from the frantic pace of life they had led in New York, none of the hustle bustle, that comes with living in a metropolitan city. In the heart of the beautiful woods was their home, the home they had always dreamt of, a dream come true or so they thought.

     They were told that the house belonged to a rich childless widow who after her husband’s death had decided to sell it as the house was too big for her and that she needed to cope with her husband’s death and get away from the house and memories of her time with her husband. So she had sold the house to Mr.Warbucks, a retired lieutenant. Mr. Warbucks had stayed in the house only for a year but had wanted to sell it on account of ‘personal reasons’.

     But the house was well maintained and its architecture had a quaint and appealing feel. And Joanne had loved it since the time she set her eyes on it. She called it ‘her dream house’.

    So they moved into the house, not knowing that their nightmare had only just begun.

On the very first evening, after they had moved in, they heard strange noises. Noises that sounded like, someone was drilling into a wall. But since they had moved into an area which was still being developed and had seen some construction in progress that afternoon, at a site not too far from their house, they reasoned that, the sounds were coming from there, it only seemed closer because of the serenity of the forest around them.

  

     The following months went by peacefully, and they did not notice anything untoward happen. Until one night, Joanne, who was alone in the house, heard voices. A voice of a child. A young girl, giggling softly. It was in the middle of the night, Joanne who was a light sleeper, woke up, turning on the lights. She tried to listen more carefully now. And there it was, yet again, only this time it was more muffled and then there was a silence followed by sniff and then howling. This time it was very loud and went on for almost a minute.

 

     Joanne was horrified and as she got up frantically to rush for the door, she tripped and fell. The loud thud sound made by her falling on the ground cut the howling and just like that, it was gone.

  

     The next morning, when William returned from his business trip to Los Angeles, Joanne shared her horrific experience. William, who did not believe in ghosts or the supernatural, comforted her saying the last couple of months of doing up the house had taken its toll on her and that she must learn to take it easy.

  

    The next few days were however, very exciting for various reasons. Joanne learned that she was expecting a baby. They were expecting William’s parents to visit and this was a perfect time to have them over to celebrate.

    For a few weeks after that, all was forgotten, in the cheer and merriment that filled the

air with the company they had and the news of the baby. It was only the day after William’s parents left, that the sounds of someone howling were heard again, in the middle of the night. And this time William heard it too. However, it was followed by a sound of a woman crying. First, the child howling and then the woman crying. It went on, night after night for a few days and just as William and Joanne decided to do look into the matter and investigate the history about the property, that the sounds stopped altogether, just as inexplicably as it had started.

  

       A couple of months later, Joanne was due, and gave birth to Lisa in the spring of  ’80. Still under sedation after being operated for the delivery, Joanne sensed that other than the nurse, there was a presence of someone or something in her room. She felt she was being watched. When William came to visit her, she spoke about the recurring dream she had and the strange presence she had felt. Again, William reassured her that there was nothing to worry about and that this was probably her reaction to the sedative given to her.

  

      That night however, Joanne got the same dream, only this time she felt that she was being asked to do something. She had seen very vaguely, a young girl and then a woman in silhouette. She heard the young girl in her dream scream for help and then she saw the woman reappear and call out to Joanne. The dream always stopped at that point and so  Joanne couldn’t understand what she was being asked to do.

   

      It was almost two years later, she saw the woman in her dream weeping, asking her to go to the lake near the forest and help her daughter who was drowning. In her dream, Joanne went by the lake where she saw a girl in full sleeve green attire, frantically gesturing and calling for help. A few seconds later, all Joanne saw were the girl’s hands reaching out in vain for someone to save her. The woman reappeared asking Joanne to save her daughter by going into the lake, a couple of meters away from the shore and throwing across a life float to her daughter. The woman seemed to know her daughter was dead, but told her that this gesture would make her daughter feel that she there had been some attempt made to save her and then her spirit would rest in peace. 

   

      Joanne woke up with a start, and told William about her dream, trembling with fear. Only after comforting her and reassuring her that he would take her to the lake the very next morning, she could go back to sleep. But as luck would have it, William was late for work and later had to dash off in the evening to New York for business. Still feeling the pressing need to find logic, in this dream, Joanne went to church. On being reassured by the priest that there was nothing to the dream, so saying, he put her mind to rest. And Joanne returned home, feeling that she had completed her responsibility and cleared the doubts she had in her mind regarding the dream. When William returned after four days, he came with his parents and all was forgotten about the dream.

    After almost a year, Joanne saw the woman in her dream again. This time the woman was very angry. She had waited for a year for Joanne to go to the lake. She cursed Joanne with a vengeance. The woman had lost her thirteen- year old daughter; she would make sure that Joanne would lose her daughter too, on her thirteenth birthday. Joanne burst out, crying aloud, apologizing profusely, as her husband shook her up. On awakening, between sobs she told William that Lisa was not safe and that they would lose their only daughter. She was not going to stay there any longer and wanted to move right away.

        The next morning William decided to take Joanne and three year old Lisa to the airport. She would be flying to New York where she could stay with her parents. Having the much-desired rest and spending time with family would take her mind off what she had dreamt about. Meanwhile, William promised her that he would be wrapping up his prior commitments and assignments so that they could move in three months.

William would fly in every three weeks and spend the weekend with Joanne and Lisa. Joanne seemed to be doing fine and looked and felt much better than she had in the last couple of months.

     After three months, as promised by William, they moved to San Francisco, in a two- bedroom house. William said that once work started rolling smoothly, they would move to a bigger place. Luckily, his clients from Redwood City were loyal and he continued receiving orders from them.

  

     It was at Lisa’s fourth birthday that things started getting troublesome. They had organised a small birthday party for Lisa and had invited all her school friends. The kids enjoyed themselves thoroughly as they played games, drank fruit punch and ate pineapple cake as their parents looked on in amusement. Once all the kids and their respective parents left, Joanne started cleaning the hall. Once she was through, she asked Lisa to open her gifts, one by one. She had opened all but a tiny green colored one, and before she could open that last present, the phone rang. It was Lisa’s aunt Susanna. Susanna was Joanne’s elder sister. She had been travelling all day and had just returned from her holiday in Spain. She had called to wish Lisa. With all this excitement, lying on the heap of gift wrappers, was the little present that remained unopened. Relating the funny incidents that had taken place during Susanna’s trip, to William, Joanne gathered the pile of wrappers and discarded them into the garbage can. Little did she know, that miraculously Lisa was saved by not opening the green box in which lay a deadly scorpion.

  

      On Lisa’s fifth birthday, the school was taking the kids on a picnic. The schoolteacher and a few mothers, who were on the school board, would be accompanying the kids. They would be taking a boat ride to a tiny island called ‘Old Woman’s Shoe’. The island was in the shape of a woman’s shoe and had been developed into an amusement park especially for children. The kids were playing ball, and as the ball wandered off to the bushes, Lisa ran off to get the ball. As she reached for the ball, from behind the bushes appeared the hands of a woman, who gave the ball to her but not before giving her a handful of weeds with tiny pretty wild flowers bunched together with a green satin ribbon.

  

    On the boat ride back, Lisa fiddled with the weeds and by the time she was dropped home by one of the mothers’, Mrs. Andrews, her hands had gotten very itchy and had developed rash and tiny scratches. After having gotten no reason as to the horrible state of Lisa’s hands from Mrs. Andrews, Joanne became very worried .She looked at the bunch of weeds and asked Lisa who had given them to her. She was horrified when Lisa told her vaguely about the ‘kind woman’, who claimed to be a friend of ‘her mothers’. As soon as William returned home, Joanne petrified, told him of the horrific incident. She told him not to make any more new commitments at work and pleaded with him to move away before they got fully immersed in their daily pattern of life in San Francisco. She promised that it would be the last time she would ask him to do anything of such nature.

      So, in summer they moved to Santa Barbara, a couple of hours north of Los Angeles.

With a beautiful house in a safe neighbourhood and things slowly settling down at work, peace was restored in the lives of the Smiths’ ….or so they thought.

  

     On Lisa’s 6^th Birthday, she received an anonymous green cardboard package via mail. In it was with a birthday cake in the shape of a snake. It seemed that evil had still a huge role to play in their lives. And though, it was evident that these ominous gifts were always presented on Lisa’s birthday, and the fact that, it always had something to do with the color green, the Smith’s made sure that Lisa was not allowed to open a single gift presented to her on any day at any time. She was to bring it back to her home where either Joanne or William would open it. Further, nothing in the house was green, and certainly nothing that belonged to Lisa was green in color.

    

      And so every birthday of Lisa’s, an air of despair that filled the air. Every year William and Joanne would unwrap Lisa’s gifts, see that no harm would come from them, to Lisa and rewrap them, so that she may get the joy of opening them. Any toy, any dress, any accessories, anything at all that was gifted to her was devoid of the color green. Much earlier, when they had just moved to town, when a playhouse had been presented to her by one of her friends, it had to be thrown away as no sooner had she begun playing with it, that insects and worms started appearing out of the ‘artificial lawn’ in front of the play house!    

      Now, seven years later, it was her thirteenth birthday. And going through the past, gave them a sense of anxiety. But today, hopefully, would be the last time they would be tested. After today she would be safe.

  

     William parked the car in the parking lot, outside the grocery store. They were going to have a party for Lisa that evening. Joanne and William went into the different sections of the store, Joanne to the food and drinks section, while William headed to the party decoration section. Joanne picked up ginger ale, fruit punch, and lemonade. Then went on to the food section and picked up pasta, ready to eat pizza, chicken nuggets, cake, chocolate ice cream, and some candies. Quickly selecting every color of candy other than green, she met William at the cash counter after he had picked up balloons, decorative streamers, games and return gifts of stationery sets of pencil, crayons and paint, ‘fun at home kit of plasticine’ and puzzles, all exclusive of the color green.

      They drove back, again in silence. Joanne got dropped off home and William rushed to work. After lunch, Joanne began preparing for the party. She set about, like a robot, doing her bit, mechanically. Her heart and mind were elsewhere.

   

      Lisa returned home from school, at 4:00 in the afternoon and excitedly told her mother about the guest lecturer they had had, visiting the children in school. It was Mrs. Anna Nielson, the Managing Director of - Candelicious, a renowned candy manufacturing company, whose candies were loved by all, but especially by children. She was there to share with the children, her company’s fun recipes on making candy and also to see whether the new crackling candy, with a lemon flavor would appeal to them. Lisa was also very happy, as there had been a questionnaire contest about the different candies manufactured by the company. She had answered all of them right and had won a prize from Mrs.Nielson.

   It was 5:30 by the time Lisa had finished helping her mother with the decorations and the preparations with the games the children were to play that evening. Lisa was ready just in time to receive her first guest and best friend Christine. Soon one by one, all Lisa’s friends began pouring in. A few parents who were also close friends of the Smiths stayed on.

      From the next room, could only be heard peals of laughter as the children enjoyed themselves playing games like tailing the donkey, four corners, musical chairs, guess the good word and dumb charades. William arrived just in time before Lisa was to cut her birthday cake. All seemed to be going on well, but amidst all this William and Joanne glanced at each other, still fearing the worst, in their hearts. 

      It was until nine in the night, when the guests started leaving, with the exception of Christine, Lisa’s best friend. Since it was a weekend, the next day, Mrs. Carlisle had permitted Christine to stay at Lisa’s until 10.

      Lisa and Christine began playing upstairs in Lisa’s room, as Joanne began clearing up and washing the dishes. And just like every birthday of Lisa’s, William and Joanne, began unwrapping the gifts one by one. And they gave a sigh of relief, when they found that all was fine. Just as they started re-wrapping the gifts, the phone rang. It was Mrs. Carlisle, apologizing profusely that she had been delayed because of work and then further delayed because of train schedules going awry, because of which she could not drop Christine off in time to Lisa’s birthday party. They were on their way now, and Mrs.Carlisle had permitted to let Christine spend the night at Lisa’s to make up for the delay. ‘Oh my god’, thought Joanne. If Christine is on her way to their house, then who, in the name of God, was upstairs with their daughter? Just at that precise time, they heard a loud cry from Lisa’s room. It was Lisa. Choking with fear, Joanne and William panicked and rushed upstairs to Lisa’s room. And to their horror, they found their beloved Lisa lying dead on the floor. She was alone in the room. There was no sight of the ‘other girl’. Lisa’s hands were covered with green paint and in her hand was the opened prize that she had won in school that day.

  

    Joanne took the box from her dead daughter’s hands and opened it. From the box, on a springboard popped out a pair of green hands And in the box, lay a sketch of the woman, whom Joanne had seen in her dream. On it, in green paint, were written the words “Happy Birthday!”