The writing prompt for this story was – One of your birthday gifts is a magic sweater.
The Birthday Present
It was my twenty-first birthday, and I finally got to vote. What do you mean, they’ve changed the voting age to 18? That’s not fair! Well, at least my family are giving me a special birthday party.
The party itself was nice. We went to a fancy restaurant, and I was allowed to order a drink. Of course, I got presents when I got home. Most of my family gave me what I wanted, which was cash. That at least allowed me to get what I really wanted.
A special gift in the pile differed from all the others. It was wrapped in old newspaper. The date of the newspaper was my birthday—my literal birthday in 1950. It was labeled for me. My mother picked it up and handed it to me.
She said this gift was from my grandma, who couldn’t be with us today, but told my mother to make sure it was given to me on my 21st birthday.
My grandmother died over 12 years before I was born. How did she…
By that point, my mother had walked away, so I didn’t get a chance to finish my question.
I opened the box containing a plain old, tattered sweater. My mother looked at me from a distance and smiled. She motioned to me to put it on.
That was very weird, but I put it on. I got this tingly feeling in my body as soon as it was on. My hands began to vibrate. I didn’t know what was happening. Try as I might, my hands wouldn’t stop vibrating. Finally, out of frustration, I just called out, “Hands, stop vibrating.” And they did.
Okay,…also weird.
My mother just smiled and nodded her head. What was going on?
An idea ran through my head. I said out loud, “This sweater is old. I wish it were new. That would make it useful.” Immediately, the sweater transformed into a new, quite stylish one.
Could it be? I tried something else: “Sweater, make yourself invisible.” Though I could still see it, the look on the rest of my family’s facial expressions told me they couldn’t.
I walked over to my mom and asked her to explain.
And she did. She told me that the sweater was unique. It was passed on to every other generation’s last-born child on their 21st birthday. This raised a lot of questions.
“But how did Grandma know who that would be before she died and when they would be born?”
My mother didn’t have an answer for that. But she did inform me that it was my job to care for it, use it wisely, and make sure that on my granddaughter’s 21st birthday…
Well, that’s as much as you need to know. Just be aware that I still have this sweater, and there are many things that I can use it for to prevent you from sharing this information if you are inclined to.
I don’t think you want to test that theory.
