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Cake day: April 16th, 2025

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  • Like that 1969 Ray Bradbury story, “Night Call, Collect”, where a man stranded on Mars spends 60 years setting up pre-recorded messages for himself that one day spring into action and eventually start talking to each other.

    Spoiler

    A relay snapped somewhere. The two phone voices were connected, one to the other.
    “Hello, Barton?”
    “Yes, Barton?”
    “Aged twenty-four.”
    “I’m twenty-six. We’re both young. What’s happened?”
    “I don’t know. Listen.”
    The silent room. The old man did not stir on the floor. The wind blew in the broken window. The air was cool.
    “Congratulate me, Barton, this is my twenty-sixth birthday!”
    “Congratulations!”
    The voices sang together, about birthdays, and the singing blew out the window, faintly, faintly, into the dead city.