All Your Birthdays

"Is someone going to address the elephant in the room?"
    My housemate couldn't resist saying it, though the reaction was muted due to the hyper-ventilating and panicked thoughts racing through our minds. But, regardless of its humour, it was the right thing to say, because thus far, none of us had addressed the elephant in the room.
    To be precise, in case it's unclear, the elephant in the room was an elephant in the room.
    Nobody knew where the elephant came from or how it had gained entry to our lounge, but, we all knew that one moment there wasn't an elephant in the room and the next second there was.
    As we huddled outside in the hallway, a tentative hand keeping the door closed - as if that would stop an elephant - we were all rather thankful that the elephant, for the most part, seemed to be pretty placid.
    "Should we call the RSPCA?" Molly wondered.
    "I guess so," Supraj nodded retrieving his mobile.
    "It's funny," Evie smiled, "On my ninth birthday, when I blew out the candles, I wished that I had a pet elephant."
    "Do you want to go and befriend it?!" Molly exclaimed.
    Supraj spluttered a laugh, then asked; "What was your pet elephant's name?"
    "Bobo," Evie sheepishly grinned, and suddenly the elephant trumpeted.

Earlier that day, in the Birthdays department, on the 17th floor of WishCorp, the office manager lazily clicked the final card into place on a round of Spider Solitaire. He smiled contentedly at the pixelated fireworks display congratulating him on his achievement, even though he'd already witnessed the same ceremony seventeen times that morning.
    A notification appeared, informing him that he had received an approved Birthday Wish from Steph in Approvals.
    Clicking on the link another window popped up, the wish had been wished by Leigh aged 5, she'd blown out the candles on her chocolate ladybug cake and had wished, with all her little heart, for her teddys to come to life and play with her. He forwarded it to Boris in Granting.
    He cosied back into his chair and started up his nineteenth game of Spider Solitaire.
    Moments later the telephone rang, it took him a while to realise this is what was happening because the telephone had never rung before. Cautiously, as if it were a trick, he picked up the receiver.
    "Hello?"
    "Is that Colin?"
    "Y-yes."
    "Colin, this is Jeanie Esteban, I'm the -"
    "The President of WishCorp, yes."
    Colin shifted his posture, straightening his back and adjusting his tie, hair and tone.
    "Colin, we've been looking at our qualitative and quantative reports from the last decade and noticed some troubling consistencies."
    "Oh?"
    "Whilst the other departments, Stars, Wells, Bones have a reasonably consistent wish to actualisation ratio, it seems Birthdays are, well, you're good at processing people's wishes, phenomenally efficient, you just haven't granted any in the last... well... forever..."
    Colin was speechless.
    "I'm speechless," said Colin.
    "I was too, we all were," she was referring to the board and Colin hoped they weren't listening in. "What we want to know," she changed her tone as well, from stern/casual to stern/stern, "is what you're going to do about this?"
    "What I'm...?"
    "We want solutions, not problems. End of play today, Colin."
    And with that she hung up.

Jimmy Pickle's face lit up, and not just because of the sudden arrival of seven candles illuminating the darkened room. His giddy smile grew even bigger once the glowing object was lowered and the cake, made by his mum, was revealed in all its wonder. In fact, Mark Gretton audibly gasped in amazement at the design. It was Sir Wildtooth, everyone's favourite Medieval Skateboarding Battlecat, and his claws had slashed three rich, red streaks down the cake.
    Beaming, Jimmy leant forward and blew out the candles.

Filing a police report, a clearly shocked Mrs. Pickles tried to explain that a gigantic animal, perhaps a lynx or panther, had suddenly burst into the party riding - what she was nervous to describe as - a skateboard, shouted, in booming R.P., "To the Battlements!" and then taken her son, and his friends, upon its back before galloping out into the high street.

Her parents ran round in a panic, unsure of how to maintain control, the birthday party had been chaotic when it was just Leigh and all her friends, but now 37 teddy bears were romping around the garden, playfully at least, but causing twice as much mess as the assembled children. They'd all begun by skipping about, the boys and girls singing teddy bear's picnic, whilst the teddys made muffled noises due to having no actual mouths, and rapidly things had descended into screaming giggles as the picnic became a food fight.

Gary can't remember the last time he'd been this stoned, but it quickly transpired that the fire-breathing unicorn standing in his kitchen was generating flames of an all-too-real quality, and he had to run - bleary eyed - out into the street, trying, through his drug addled mind, to remember the number for the emergency services; he knew it had a 9 in it.

Stuart Dandridge was horrified to step into his garden to find himself plummeting into a swimming pool that hadn't been there the night before.

Harriet Lipsy was trying to recover from a hangover whilst her former favourite boyband Hi-Five performed their greatest hits in her bedsit.

Gita Virk was trying to find her car keys but kept pulling an infinite amount of cupcakes from her pockets instead.

At 5.30pm Colin carried a dull beige box down from the 17th floor to the parking level, where he loaded the salvaged Newton's Cradle and a five-fingered pack of highlighters into the boot of his car.