A Birthday Party

[poliphilo]

Samina asked us round to celebrate Zayam's birthday. Apart from us it was all family. Nakisha was playing One Direction vids. She kept pausing the one where they're in a hall of memory hung with photos of their past lives to tell us, "Now this is really moving."  Which it is. There was a wonderful birthday cake in the shape a cartoon character I didn't recognize which came not with candles but with a miniature firework that threw out golden rain. Zayam got just the one present- an i-pad, which Nakisha took off him and set up with a screen-saver of super heroes. As we were leaving Shiraz regaled us with stories of break-ins and stabbings and rapes and how we've got to watch out because the Roma are coming.