A birthday to remember

The wind is loud & whiney, causing a chill run down my spine as I cover my head with the covers. A dog howls somewhere & I hear a scurrying noise in the bushes just behind my house. A part of me knows that there is no monster under my bed nor in my closet… but as the banging noise continues, I warily peep out of my covers to see if the closet door would close on its own if i gave it a long, hard look. It doesn’t. With a false spurt of courage, egged by resignation, I get up off the bed and walk quickly towards the closet and close it a tad bit too fiercely. I go ahead to the main door and bolt all the 4 locks. “Hah!” I think. “Now it will take 4 times as much effort for a strange creature to get in”… And then almost immediately, I realize that if someone is already hiding in the house, it would take me 4 times more time to get out. I shudder at the thought. The night is chilly and wet and my feet are cold. I quickly unbolt 2 locks and slip into bed and cover my head with the sheet. The windows rattle and I hear faint knocking. I’m sure I’m imagining it. Or am I?
The window hinge is broken, so that not only can I not close the window, but the squeaky noise is magnified, tonight. The curtains dance in the wind reaching up to me, patting me to join them. I fiercely try to ignore it all. I won’t get up again. But the long flaps of cloth don’t relent. I remove the covers with a sigh, call myself an idiot for such irrelevant fear after years of living alone and take the two steps towards the window to knot the curtains. That is when I see it… a silhouette.

The silhouette resembled the structure of a human being. Who would visit me at this hour of night?? My heart started fluttering and my tongue almost dried out. Who is there?? Tried my best to make my voice audible. There was an eerie silence for approximately 1 minute and the silhouette, in the form of a human, stood standstill. Happy Birthday Buddy!. Does the voice sound familiar??, I asked myself. The voice reverberated through my ears and as always it didn’t took me long to recognize the vocal of my old friend, David. Despite of the chilly climate, I could feel bids of perspiration accumulating on my forehead. David! How could you be here at this hour?? Before the human figure could speak, I was jolted out of my dream. Sweating profusely, I tried to figure out where I was and what was going on. I looked at my wall clock which read half-past one at night. Getting hold of my cell phone, I found an unread text. It was from John, a common friend of David and mine. The text read ‘ Happy Birthday dear. It’s a very important day of your life but I can’t help giving you the sad news that David has passed away last evening in a car accident’.