28

Belongs to a decade that no longer allows you the privilege of individual candles, each representing a year. Unless she gets a really large cake. One that she will have to bake herself. And that just means more birthday cake for breakfast, late afternoon and midnight snacks for a week. 28 is also not a 'special' year like 18, 30 or 60, so no joint numeral candles. Instead she has to pick out the numbers separately. There is a 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 7 and a 9. But no 8. She stands before the rack of wax numbers, conflicted. A year up or a year down? Or just a 2? Or no candles at all? Or should she get the lotus that blooms and blares out Happy Birthday on the banjo? Perhaps the universe is telling her not to expect much from this year. That it's going to be another hazy 365 days that she will look back on a few years from now and not be able to remember much from. Why celebrate it at all then? Why bother bringing in another 12 months of bland work days, weekends cleaning the fridge and restocking it, taking bags of plastic bottles and newspapers to the recycling plant and looking for strands of white hair? She would skip 28 she decided. Yes, that was it. 28 was not going to exist. She slips the red candle in to her shopping basket and heads to the till. Her melting birthday gift to herself would be another heady year of 21.