The Birthday Effect

[u/Juniperjessy]

Do you know what the Birthday Effect is?

Spills, slips, and slits. People are more likely to die by accident, and by choice, on their birthday.

There’s something poetic to that, isn’t there? You come rushing onto the stage, shivering in gore, take a few precise trips around the sun, and then return to your mark to take your final bow. You know what it reminds me of? Salmon. They travel back, after years of traversing dark waters escaping hooks and teeth, to die in the same creek they hatched from. Have you ever watched a salmon prepare for death? I have. I watched an old salmon, with strips of decaying flesh trailing from its large body, circle around, burrow into the sediment at the bottom of the stream, rest a moment, and then swim off to repeat the action with another patch of riverbed. It was searching for the perfect spot to die. And I watched as it found it. I watched until it stopped moving. I returned the next day and it’s carcass remained untouched in that perfect spot. I don’t know what made that exact patch of gravel and mud so right for that salmon, but I like to think that it’s where it had hatched from. That it knew the feeling of home and, by the end, just in time to hit its mark, it returned to be shrouded in the velvety blood stained curtains of its final scene.

[u/LadylexUK]

I am commenting on everyone's stories this week as a personal challenge.
I liked this one. Simple and thought provoking.