Fireworks

By Joel O’Flaherty

An almighty BOOM echoes throughout the cold night sky. 

“They’re just fireworks,” I reassure, clutching Afsana tightly.

My little sister shivers in my arms. 

Another BOOM sends a tremor through her body.

But now it’s not just her that’s shaking. Dust cascades from the ceiling. 

BOOM!

Our house shudders so violently that the clock falls from the wall, shattering, the time in Sangin forever frozen three minutes before a new year dawns.

As distant screams curdle the air, I repeat myself. If I say it with enough conviction, perhaps I will believe my own lie.

“They’re just fireworks.” 

Chips 

By Fhi Love

‘Maybe next time,’ he says.

‘You really are the pits,’ I say.

Ben slides his plump sweaty hand away from mine as we both reach for the blackened, miniature sausage rolls. The poinsettias wilt at each end of the snowman polluted tablecloth. 

Sometimes, when enough days have crashed around your shoulders, they solidify—like hardened clumps of greasy potato—immovable without a pickaxe. The thud of hefty expectations deafen, dented from the fall but still annoyingly intact. 

‘Next year had better be different,’ I say, but Ben says, ‘A few hours ain’t going to make much difference.’

A Cheap Night In

By Ruth Barber

Intensive care, no parties there

Doctors, shifts soon ending

Sigh wearily and fearfully

At injuries incendiary

Drunks in flimsy skirts and shirts

Roll wanton on the cold damp street

Dionysus not ignited

Fore midnight fast asleep

Speculation crackles

On online notice boards

Is this the phase of solar rage? or

More of the before?

I slept before my fireplace

Turned off all my phones

Enjoyed a selfish revelry

Tucked up warm at home

Celebrate another date

A number that you choose

Or far older anniversary

With the Chinese and the Jews

Snow-Bound

By Julie Staines

The crunch of feet on crusted snow rouses her. She risks opening an eye; a blinding sliver of white light. A foul-tasting cloth swaddles her mouth. Gagging, she is frozen, immobilised. 

She casts her mind back to the previous night's festivities  - spinning chandeliers, glasses clinking, champagne bubbles tickling her throat. Whirling in sparkly sandals, a silken sheath dress.

She glances at her bloodied feet, sandals long-abandoned; her milky flesh laid bare, her naked breasts. Shivering, as much from shock, as from cold. Who had cable-tied her, nude, to the steering wheel of a car? 

The footsteps march past, unseeing...

The Luckiest Spark in the World

By Manuela Stoicescu

Etta was watching the fireworks from her balcony when she heard a whimper.

It came from under the chair. A spark, crackling and squirming, light leaking out of him. Etta took him in her palm and he bit like a sick kitten. She kept him by candlelight and fed him ash until he regained his strength. 

Now he turns on her stove when she cooks and her lamp when she reads. And on New Year’s Eve, they watch the fireworks together and he wonders if they all find their Ettas or if he’s just the luckiest spark in the world.

Knowing

By Matthew Tett

Cassie up-ended the bottle, drained the last few bubbles. She squashed the party platters flat, munched on a once-puffy vol-au-vent, nibbled some corn chips. The festive napkins were soggy, couldn’t be saved.

She’d thought the same the year before. Probably before that, too, thinking back through the haze of Christmases past. But it was always the same.

Perhaps, just perhaps, it would be different next year. Sending the invitations earlier, or making it sound like more of an occasion, might help.

Lights off, door locked, she went upstairs to bed, knowing that tears would follow.

Enough Now

By Megan Anderson

Tonight when the first firework splashes its big plans across the New Year sky, we’ll slip away. We don’t need more time. An artillery of fresh starts will unload pink and green over the harbour as we flick off our reedy lights and go. 

Today, we’ll be gentle. I’ll wheel you into the sun and we’ll watch the honeyeaters do nimble things. You might wear that dress with the starbursts on it. I’ll prepare everything, but let’s not speak of it. Let’s just touch our papery fingers together and be sure.

The Annual Felling Of The Wolf Tree

By Victoria Leigh

His aim blurs. Another swing. He misses.

New Year’s Eve on San Juan again, kiddo. Put everything behind us.

Heavy limbs crash hard on the sheepskin like a rotted fir into mud… hoarsened vocal cords rattle, and swollen fists tremor and twitch in front of the fire.

Need my beer jacket tonight kiddo, gets chilly on the peninsula.

Dinner stares half-eaten from up on the table. Cans dribble a pee-coloured river over the wood grain floor.

Not far from the shore, I hear the Southern residents blowing cascades of relief into showers of exploding chrysanthemums.

I Bid Adieu With No Fear                                                          

By Ronita Sinha

Who knows where a year flies

Where it goes when the firework dies

The champagne flute with a sigh

ends its song, empty and dry.

To the dead-year heaven

the dying year drags

the songs sung

the laughter laughed

While the year’s young, robust

I think it’ll never pass

until New Year’s Eve appears

like a gash of grief

of things undone

paths untrodden.

I gaze at the city lights

that soon will die.

Another sun will rise

baby-pink, layette-kissed

dreams anew clenched in its fists

I bid adieu with no fear

Leaning in, 

I hug the new-born year.

The group chose ‘Fireworks’ as their winner! Congratulations, Joel O’Flahery!