The Town People's Fireworks

The extra beautiful feeling <3

 

I may be alone tonight but at least I won’t be the saddest person when the clock strikes midnight and the cosmic affair starts. I do have a lot of reasons to be really sad though; I am away from home, I’m stuck in this town like an alien walking by, and I feel out of place. I feel alone and I am alone. Bu thank the Lord I had considered avoiding my solitary kind of lifestyle staying in my apartment and trying to focus on work. The year is going to end and move on, there’s no way for me to punish myself as though I don’t deserve to live a life of goodness and setting free. Here outside is instant freedom, just standing up amidst the sea of people I am not familiar with even if I can recognize some faces of those I always happen to meet on the way.

I’m basically unknown to everybody here but right at this moment we are all in one anticipation that part of me finds belongingness. Huddled in this thoroughfare, we are all raising our heads and waiting for the lights to skyrocket, for now all we do is embrace the moment with excited smiles and giddy hearts.

Waiting for the fireworks feels wonderful that it’s one of the best things in life I don’t ever want to miss especially when it’s often the ugly, disturbing things that eat my brain.  When I was a kid, I looked at how the launching touched the sky and then magically there was no darkness at all, that the whole world must be the brightest planet in the universe surpassing Venus. My eyes would be so wide and with a huge grin I would trace every direction of these colored moving stars"as I described it. Of course innocence is naturally attracted to beautiful things they see" to those magnanimous creations and inventions suddenly appearing.

But coming to my right age, I have come to appreciate what I feel more than just what I see. Whenever I stare at the fireworks, it feels like I have no room for troubles and worries, seeing something outstandingly beautiful the world stops and you live like there are only good things coming, and you wish there’s no ending to it. Indeed New Year needs fireworks to remind everyone of hope.

I look around for a while and can’t help my gnawing emptiness when it is so clear to me that everyone has got someone to hold. There are families hand in hand, lovers not disintegrating from each other and friends swimming in merrymaking. If I view it on a picture, I can quickly spot where I’m standing because everyone would be coyly colored and I’m the sole black and white.

I think of my family and how every member would possibly pause for a second and frown at my absence, and my loving friends back home that I haven’t seen for almost a year now. No wonder since last Tuesday text messages, postcards and emails that I have not replied to were flooding me.  I could only smile and wipe my eyes at every word being written and said by the voices in my head. I won’t even answer a phone call from my mom because I know I will cry most of the time we talk. I’m a terrible homesick crybaby.

Letting out a feeble sigh, I remind myself that this is my first solo New Year and I have no one close to me who will hold me while watching the fireworks. I recall my arms hugging mom and dad, my little brother climbing my back with dad’s swift hand to prop him so he will not slide off my back. Sometimes my friends and I would see each other and launch our own fireworks, together we’d countdown on the top of our lungs and exchange cheek-to-cheek kisses and hugs.

11: 57 says the giant clock on the tower, the people holler and hoot. I cringe hearing a brawny man’s rough and deep voice right at my ear. “Oh I’m sorry.” He apologetically taps my shoulder.

“It’s okay. We’re supposed to have fun, to make noise.” I laugh and he shrugs with a beaming smile.

“You having fun dearie?” I am surprised when he asks in a way that he is aware of my exceptional status in here.

“Oh. Yes, of course.” I nod, hardly smiling. “Are you with your family sir?”

“Just my little Mickey angel here,” He lifts a charming, little girl wearing a Mickey Mouse suit and instantly I crave to see my little brother’s eyes again. “ her momma’s back home setting up the table and a little sick. This is Sofia.”

  “Hi Sofia, are you excited to see the fireworks?” I ask, waving my hand at her. She waves back, nods and puts her head in her daddy’s shoulder.

“She’s a shy girl.” He chuckles. “How about you, anyone around?”

“Oh.” I shake my head. “I’m away from home, I can’t leave an urgent project so I had to stay. I haven’t taken a break until I convinced myself to come here tonight.”

“That’s life dear, we all go through that sacrifice. At least you do think about them wherever you are.” He winks and gives me an encouraging smile. I nod and look up to sky, breathing out every element of sadness that accumulated inside me.

The noise rises again when the clock changed to another minute. I fish my phone out of my coat’s pocket, I type my short greetings and send to mom and dad and then send another to my best friend adding a postscript that she’ll greet rest of our group for me.  Then I feel a different weight in my chest when I remember him. I kind of hate special occasions because we can’t always avoid thinking of the most important people in our lives. I don’t want to be bothered by his promise, let alone miss him because he’s the most impossible person to reach at the moment. I don’t like admitting to myself that he matters to me a lot because he doesn’t see me the same way, we haven’t even spoken to each other in the past weeks and suddenly it cuts through me how I wish he’s here. Where did it come from? I guess I’ve been a certified hopeless romantic watching romantic films and reading novels, and isn’t it one of those floating-in-the-air sensations when you watch fireworks with someone so special to you? "I’ve never felt it.

Anyway, I shake him off my mind and concentrate on the chorus of the crowd’s countdown. I am already gasping inside as my smile hangs in the air. At “8” I join counting. “…7…6…5…” I close my eyes, feeling my heart drumming against the wall of my chest.

“...4…3…” My goose bumps are creeping on my skin and my right palm catches a warm touch. “…2…” I’m in shock that I open my eyes, and at the drop of a hat I see him towering beside me.

“ONE.” He whispers, smiling. I stare at his face and the colors are dancing in his cheeks, the lights from the fireworks are painting his face with so much radiance. I know there’s noise around me and the popping of fireworks is the center of the moment but I can’t seem to take my eyes off of his face tilting up. The sound of the transcending explosions and bursting music is muffled and I can’t believe there’s a more beautiful thing stealing my attention than the fireworks display now. He is aware that I am staring, and I think he is teasing me as he is just looking up with a bright smile, his hand clutching mine tightly. “Happy New Year!” He tells me, loud enough to wake me up from a stupor.

“Oh. Happy new year.” I nervously respond, very much conscious of our hands holding. I don’t know why this is happening.  “Why are you here?”

“I figured you didn’t make flying back home.” He says still looking up, and then I follow everyone’s eyes too. I go back being normal when I giggle watching the fireworks in all directions; I see the giant orange-yellow circle that looks like a wheel in the sky canvas drawn in tiny dots, and from left and right the blue fireworks pop all at once breaking into shooting stars falling. My hand is sweating and I think he feels how awkward I am that we both let go.

“Thank you.” I tiptoe to reach his ear and bury my hands in my pocket wishing I stayed being comfortable holding him but I don’t want false hope even if this night is supposed to bring the message of hope. This with him is just not easy.

“For what?”

For being here. But maybe I was just overreacting believing he came for me, maybe it was just a coincidence that he saw me here. “Uhm, nothing really. Just thank you.”

“Are you surprised?”

“What?”

He grins and I have to stop looking at him because my stomach is getting sick. “I wanted to tell you I was coming over but I thought that you’d find your excuses to avoid my arrival.”

“What are you saying?”

“Never mind. I’m just happy you didn’t run away when I approached you. I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“Oh,” I don’t know what to say, I can’t continue my “thank you” anymore and I just feel a smile forming in my blushing face. The sky is so full now that the surroundings shine and again the earth must be the brightest planet in the solar system Venus’s vanity is losing. I laugh reminiscing my childish thought.  

“You know what when I was a kid?” He wistfully begins leaning his shoulder against mine, I have no reason to scoot. “I always told my mom that watching the fireworks is too beautiful it has to happen every night. She was my favorite buddy watching it because she tells me good things to make the moment extra beautiful.” He laughs.

“You were such a lucky kid.”

“I know and I kind of missed her when I grew up and had to be away from home. I would always call her when this happens.”

“So did you call her tonight?”

“I just sent her a text. Done being a kid.” He laughs again.

“I believe she’ll understand.”

“Yes. One time she told me that at the right moment, I will feel that extra beautiful feeling again. She says someday I will have to be with someone so special while watching the fireworks to get back to that feeling, and it will be a different kind of beautiful feeling from the one I had when I was a kid.” My throat starts to catch a lump that I’m about to cry. “I thought she was just joking until I feel it now. I made a right choice coming here, right?”

Our eyes meet and I see the reflection of the bright lights in his pretty eyes. We smile at each other and we need no words at all to confirm what we both want to express. Now I feel like I am skyrocketing higher than the fireworks.   

Author's Note

Happy New Year!