Downloads/birthday_2026.mp4
As the video opens, your eyes are all but affronted by the medley of bright hues that range across the screen like a star's unfurling corona: vibrant orange tablecloths and emerald grass winking up at you from their position under the protective arm of an outdoor gazebo.
The structure's fabric apertures have been tied back, allowing volumes of light to spill in and gently touch upon the huddle of people that stand poised in the foreground, arrayed about a sizable table, and who are, to an attendee, livening the film's audio with the multi-voiced stanzas of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
Crouched at the heart of this conflagration sits the delicious, if rather crude, depiction of a Sherman tank cast in chocolate and green icing, the vehicle's turret alight with six candles and its skittle armaments aimed at a small child held aloft at the table's head by a fondly grinning man.
With their tiny hand clutching a massive cake knife, the child's smiling happily, and, as the singing reaches its peak, they puff up their small chest and direct a valiant blow towards the candles (all be it still with the discreet assistance of a handful of the partygoers).
In a glint of silver, the blade's brought down upon the tank's hull, and the last few shots are of various plates of chocolate tank armor being distributed to the party's guests.
The fact that, in the post-Cataclysm, you might very well recognize the face of this same child you're watching lay into a section of chocolate tank tread as it tries to peel bare your own organs with the same voracity hasn't eluded you.
The notion will plague you for a long, long time to come.