The tubelights don’t work. One, at the end of the room does, but most of the room has settled into semi-darkness. Somewhere at the other end, the murmur of prayer. Eyes are shut, hands are clasped, the baby in question is sleeping in the other room.
For we are here for Baby’s birthday. To pray for the little one- year- old boy, and celebrate his one year of life with him. It isn’t his fault that his father is as annoying as he is.
So a birthday prayer- party for a little boy we know only by his parents, in the somewhat dingy parsonage above the church. We have come to partake in a snippet from the vicar’s life, as if he were our own.
But halfway down the room, a curtain-rod. A curtain-rod without a curtain, not making the division it’s supposed to, between drawing room and bedroom- passageway. And tied onto it, three bunches of small, multi-coloured balloons that bob up and down in the current from the fan.
Bobbing up and down- Happy Birthday Dear Mari-is,
Happy Birthday To You.