Midnight tick
It's funny. The tick of the second hand past that momentuous midnight hour passed nearly unnoticed in a mob crush of uncertainty. Celebratory cheers beginning with nervous narrowed side-glances, faceless mouths opening noiselessly, no one wanting to be the idiot to start the cheering prematurely. Except, of course, the (mostly-drunken) idiots who did. It took the fireworks to stun the cattle into action: 2004 and certainty rolled in waves across the crowd, as the sky above was ignited with kaleidoscopes, and the air blazed with roars.
The implacable planet passes GO on a Monopoly orbit, collecting inebriated cheers instead of £200. The image amuses me, even in the stifling claustrophobia.
The streets swarm with peeved revellers, so drunk they tiptoe on the cusp of midnight with breathless fervour, expecting the world to leap into cubist lines, dribble off into Dalian dimensions - any kind of mindblowing radical change that would justify the climax of new-year anticipation. They step off that intoxicating midnight tick to find the world placidly, nonchalantly and entirely unchanged...and such disappointment is, naturally, ample incentive to become even more drunk.
Cotton rain drifts half-heartedly from above; the breath of thousands congeals into a bloom of fog, rolling in with the new year. The crowd disperses like dandelions.
But there's a little something in the air. It makes strangers reach out to strangers, "Happy New Year mate" on the brink of their tongues, drawn out by the tiniest of smiles and the briefest of eye contact. It's the fuzz that finds its way into the heart; even if it's destined to last only a few hours, it's better than nothing. Better than animosity, better than anguished fists, better than words like razor blades. Better than a glance lashed with "You're different" and laced with "I'm better". I'm treading the uneven cobblestones down towards Waterloo, suede boots soaked in the rain-slick ground, and the roads are paved with races, genders, classes and religions, arm in arm, hollering tunelessly in drunken collaboration. Such warmth in bitter winter cold. It's like a Christmas encore.
Why is it that such spirit requires this one momentous annual tick, celebrated in the name of a planet that doesn't even hear it? Why war, when you could link arms and bawl out Auld Lang Syne in an unrecognizable key? Why wait until new year's, anyway?
And why, why did I wear suede boots in the rain? Damn, damn, damn.