A Twenty-second Birthday

Prompt ▼

Write a short story with the number 22 as a dominant theme, topic, or idea in honor of WdC's 22nd birthday celebration.
Written for "The Whatever Contest." "The Whatever Contest -- Closed for Now" 
Word Count: 222

A Twenty-second Birthday

Twenty-one years was a milestone. It had once been the age of majority and entailed things like the key of the door, being able to vote, and responsibility. Now that was all taken care of long before the twenty-first birthday. Yet twenty-one still held a mystical power somehow.

Not twenty-two, however. On this, his twenty-second birthday, Morgan considered how empty and featureless the day had been. No partying this time. It was already well past noon and no one had phoned to congratulate him. No cards, no gifts, there was nothing to indicate the specialness of the day.

Apart from the envelope Morgan had just discovered in a supposedly empty suitcase he’d hauled out of storage to prepare for his trip next month. The plain, brown envelope was all the case contained. On it, in a shaky, untidy scrawl, was written the words:

Happy Twenty-second Birthday, Morgan.

As he stared at the message, Morgan found a faint memory lurking in a dark corner of his brain. A drunken memory, fuzzy with confusion, of himself writing a message and then hiding it in the suitcase. It must have been done at his twenty-first party, he reasoned.

He opened the envelope and withdrew the message. A smile began to crease his face as he read:

I feel so sick. Stay sober next year, Morgan.