It
was the 31st of December and the year was coming to an end. It was our yearly
ritual to go up the hill on the outskirts of town to watch the fireworks bloom
at midnight. The sight was always fascinating. Just imagine the night sky
gleaming with stars and all of a sudden the roar of gunpowder releasing
coloured sparks which light up the already lit sky and the cheering of hundreds
and thousands of people welcoming in the new year.
We
would usually arrive there a few hours short of midnight. Though the place was
not very popular since it was located outside of the city, there would still be
quite a number of people present. Nonetheless, in the early hours leading up to
midnight, we will be able to spend those precious moments together: just the
both of us, he and I. We would always lay a mat down on the grass and rest the
cooler box by our side - it was a very ingenious yet practical idea of carrying
one or two bottles of wine in the cooler box since there was definitely no way
of getting ice much less a bucket to contain it - to enjoy a few sips of wine as
well as the presence of each other.
He
would caress my cheeks and tell me of how beautiful I am and how I mean the
world to him. To me, there was nothing more important than being together with
him. Just seeing him flushes me and I know I want him more and more each day.
We would talk about our lives, share good laughs together and just doing
anything else lovers do. We couldn't care less about our public displays of
affection. Who cares anyway? We see it on movies all the time. When we are
together, we're just caught in our own world with no one around us. Just the
two of us. That's all that matters.
He
turned to look at me and I returned his gaze. Looking at his eyes and that
beautiful smile of his reminds me of the day we first met. It was the first
class of college. I was rushing to a lecture when he accidentally knocked me
and my books fell solidly to the floor. Being the gentleman he is, he helped
gather my belongings and that was when our eyes met for the very first time. I
didn't know that we were heading to the same lecture together. Anyway, that's
what we did and eventually we got to know each other more and more to the point
where we decided we wanted to end up together.
At
last, I heard the cries of the people counting down to the coming year,
breaking my chain of memories. "Five! Four! Three! Two! One!", they
went and the fireworks went off with a bang. The whole sky lit up with the many
explosions that came and went. It was a beautiful sight. But what does it
matter to me now? My tears fell as the fireworks went up into the night sky. I
saw lovers sharing their first kiss of the year and my heart broke. I feel only
his phantom hands around me now. I was alone, he was gone. What did the new year
mean to me now that he is no longer with me? I looked up to the night sky,
gazing at the stars and wondered if he was looking at me from above, and
wishing that the distance between us never existed. How I wish that I were with
him since he could now no longer be with me.
