EP 384 – Story #3

You are Tony, a famous journalist and co-host of "AIPD" who has been assigned a story for BBC. You love the BBC and you meet with Miša, an AIPD regular viewer who works as a Production assistant for the BBC. Miša decides to help you film a story about Jason, a guy who has a very controversial opinion of birthdays. The day before your shoot, Miša tells you that he's got some information on this topic which might be useful in the making of the documentary.
You look at an incriminating photo of Jason, it shows him drinking beer while wearing a birthday hat. It seems like there's no way out now... but then something strange happens: Your phone rings and you receive a message from someone named "Miša".
Miša tells you over the phone that they have found the man responsible for putting the hat on Jason's head; and he wants to talk to you about it. He will give you the address where you can find him tomorrow morning.
You visit Jason's hat handler. When you get inside his house, you see that he doesn't know anything about any hat or its owner. His wife also denies having put the hat on her husband's head.
You grab the man by the shirt and slam him against the wall. You ♥if he knows why people celebrate their birthdays, and he answers yes. You tell him that every year, millions of people around the world celebrate their birthdays.
You slam him against the wall again and demand to know why Jason doesn't like birthdays.  The hat handler cries and says he knows nothing.  Then you see Jason standing in the entryway.  He asks what happened.
He goes back into the room and grabs his hat off the table.  He puts it on his head and walks away.
You follow him home.
You hide in the bushes and observe Jason meeting with Time Cop.
Time Cop tells Jason that all of humanity celebrates birthdays because humans were born once a year.
Jason starts to cry.
Then he throws up.
You sneak into the home and head upstairs.  You enter Jason's room and see why he has such a hatred for birthdays: He was born on December 25th.  All throughout history, human beings celebrated Christmas instead of birthdays, so they could keep their religion separate from science.
You rush back downstairs, but you are too late.  Time Cop and Jason have gone and you know exactly where: to the year 0 to kill Baby Jesus.
You run outside and try to stop them.  But the car is already driving down the street.  So you jump onto the hood and climb over the windshield.
You drive straight towards the nativity scene.  Time Cop tries to use his gun to shoot the baby Jesus statue, but it won't work.
Your switcharoo worked like a charm!  You carry the real baby Jesus into the desert swaddled in a bag of clothes that Cory gave to Jason as a birthday present.
You pull out your phone and send the video to Miša and AIPD.  Then you throw the bag of clothing out of the window.
You realize you just threw Jesus out the window.  And then you remember that you're not supposed to do that.
The driver stops the car and gets out.  It is Time Cop.
You say, "now we have to start a religion called Jasonion!"  The driver laughs at you and tells you to go ahead and join the cult.
You turn around and walk to the front door.
You open the door and step inside.
You see everyone wearing celebration hats in front of a casket.  Everyone is shouting, "Happy Death Day!"
You stand there, stunned.
And then you hear a voice.
It's the driver who laughed at you before.
"What's wrong, Tony?
The voice is Misa.  He's telling you that the joke's on you.
You are the one who made the whole thing happen.
You brought the birthday hat to the past."
The moral of the story:
Celebrating birthdays isn't bad.
It's when you forget that it's important to celebrate that it becomes problematic.
The title to the sequel of this story:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU

A Little Bit About Me
I'm a writer and I have been working on my first novel since last summer.