The cake.

And so you sink amid the desert of time, each grain within grasp, yet impossible to sculpt. The landscape continues to drop, and you stumble desperately for an exit. An invisible fence blocks you. You will descend with the rest of us, good, evil, unaligned, all at the same pace and with the same end. Closer now, too close for comfort. Is the heat from the sun or from the unbearable anticipation? You looked forward to it once, but it gets faster every year. More familiar. They wish you happy birthday, but the hourglass simply turns over, feckless and cakeless.