Happy Birthday, Dear Emily by Mike Murphy | Script Revolution

Happy Birthday, Dear Emily

Fire is good. Fire is cleansing.

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Page Count: 
13pp

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Based On: 
My short story.
Synopsis/Details: 

Emily’s dad has left her and her mother. Mom is terribly sad. . . and drinking. Emily wants to help her, but can’t figure out how.

That’s when the Birthday Fairy – a diminutive, furry creature – appears. It can make Emily’s mom happy if Emily doesn’t make any birthday wishes until she turns ten. Then, all those saved wishes can be combined into one big wish to make Mom happy.

Emily agrees.

On the day of her tenth birthday party, her father is there with his latest girlfriend. After the candles are blown out and the wish made, Emily throws a big piece of cake onto her dad’s shirt. It’s funny. . . until he bursts into flames. Nothing and no one can put him out. He dies on the floor of his injuries.

Mom is shocked to see her daughter smiling.

Emily is sent to an asylum. Eventually, the Fairy appears in her room. She tells it that she’s not happy here. The Fairy hands her sticks to rub together since fire is “cleansing.” As it disappears, Emily – knowing the night nurse rarely checks on her – starts rubbing the sticks together.

Soon, there will be cleansing flame.

Submitted: October 22, 2024
Last Updated: October 22, 2024

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This Script Is Loved By 2 Readers

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The Writer: Mike Murphy

Mike, a four-time Parsec Awards finalist, has had over 150 audio plays produced in the U.S. and overseas. He’s won a dozen Moondance International Film Festival Awards (winner, finalist, and semi-finalist) in their TV pilot, audio play, short screenplay, and short story categories. A more complete list of awards is presented below by year. In 2020, his screenplay Die Laughing was a semi-finalist in the Unique Voices Screenplay Competition from Creative Screenwriting magazine. The following year, his TV pilot script “The Bullying Squad” was a quarter-finalist in the Emerging Screenwriters Genre Screenplay Competition. His prose has appeared in many magazines and two dozen anthologies. In... Go to bio

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