As she approached the small chapel, she heard voices speaking in a hushed tone. Checking the name in the placard on the wall in the hallway just outside the doorway, she confirmed that she was, in fact, in the right room. Quietly, she noted that a small group of five people, none of whom she recognized, were standing near the front of the chapel, talking quietly, so she turned and went back to the reception area to wait.
She felt the throbbing before she opened her eyes. She was disoriented and uncomfortable, but the sound of Arnie softly breathing next to her assured her that she was at home. She opened her eyes slowly as she sat up. He was lying on his side, gazing at her, a couple of noisemakers and some confetti streamers strewn about. The bottle of champagne she had bought a few days earlier — nearly empty now — stood upright in silent testament to the previous night.
In many different respects, 2008 was a challenging year for most. But on New Year’s Eve, we pause to remember the good things that happened during the past year. On this night, we forget our problems and cares, looking hopefully to the future. Precisely at midnight, we’ll be singing and toasting the arrival of 2009!
Hope you brought your family and good friends along, because the party is just getting underway. The champagne has been on ice all day and the waiters are popping the first bottles now. The hors d’ oeuvres will be served momentarily. Grab a few noisemakers and select a silly hat! The orchestra is tuning up and will begin playing in just a few minutes.
Confident Writing sponsored an end-of-the-year Group Writing Project to which authors were asked to submit a single post representing their best 2008 work. I selected An Unexpected Independence Day Celebration because I believe it is one of my best-crafted short stories. It is based not upon one particular person, but, rather, several people who are dear to me, including a special couple in whose honor I wrote the piece as a way of demonstrating my affection for them upon the occasion of their wedding. My second choice for 2008 is The Keys to Her Future.
Nearly every morning, he managed to be in the parking lot at the precise moment she arrived for work. And even though she worked on the third floor of the ten-story building, and he was assigned to the fifth, he not only walked into the building with her; the last few mornings, he had gotten off the elevator on the third floor, walked with her down the hall and opened the door to the office for her before ducking into the nearby stairwell and bounding up the final two floors to his cubicle. The last few nights, she had also encountered him in the lobby and they walked to their cars together.
When she walked into her new apartment for the first time, she burst into tears as a plethora of emotions rushed over her. Alone with Timmy in a city with which she was completely unfamiliar and where the only person with whom she was acquainted was the kind stranger who had met them at the bus depot and escorted them to the housing project, she considered her sparsely furnished new home.