Snowfall That Ignores The Countdown [Wreath]
The room glows in secondhand colors that used to be vivid sometime around eight in the evening,
bottles sweating on the coffee table next to a bowl of chips that died bravely three hours ago,
and I am half folded into the same sagging couch that has seen too many almosts and never agains,
watching a glitter drenched host scream numbers at a crowd that looks allergic to regret.
Ten minutes to midnight, the screen insists,
font huge enough to punch even the drunkest viewer right between the eyes,
and every commercial break is a reminder that somewhere out therepeople wear matching outfits and coordinated smiles on purpose.
The neighbors are already yelling in the hallway,
somewhere between celebration and argument,
and all of it blends into that thick holiday noise you drink aroundinstead of listening to.
Behind the glass, the world is almost silent in a way that feels suspicious.
Snow drifts down in lazy sheets,
not in a hurry for fireworks or resolutions or some stranger’s lips as the clock flips over,
just drifting like this night is any other night where water briefly remembers how to fly.
Streetlights smear it into soft silver dust that swirlsaround parked cars and tired fences and the lone trash canthat refuses to stay upright when the wind gets moody.
The TV shrieks another recap of the yearwith a highlight reel of disasters and celebrities smiling bravely through their own ruin,
then cuts to a crowd chanting along with the numbers at the bottom of the screen,
faces slick with sweat and confetti,
every one of them pretending the person beside them will still be there next winter.
The audio peaks, rattling the cheap speakers,
like the room has been possessed by an overexcited sports announcerwhose team is Time itself.
Outside, a single car crawls down the street,
tires whispering across the new blanket on the asphalt,
headlights soft, almost apologetic,
a tiny submarine gliding through quiet weatherwhile everyone else climbs onto that bright spinning boat on the screen.
Snowflakes swirl in the beams,
each one minding its own tiny business,
failing to care that the year is about to be renamed.
Inside, the countdown clock in the corner drops into single digitsas some starlet in a dress made of sequins and stubbornnessshouts questions no one can hear over the roaring crowd.
Beside me, your phone buzzes face down on the cushion,
lighting up just enough to throw your name across the fabric for half a secondbefore slipping back into the dark like it is guilty too.
I do not touch it.
The old year has already had enough of us.
Someone on the screen screams about new beginningslike they personally invented redemption,
while the band behind them hammers at their instrumentsas if volume alone can scare off the ghosts.
The whole spectacle looks like an exorcism of last year’s mistakesfunded by three different beer sponsors.
I glance back at the windowwhere the glass glows with snow-glow and streetlight halos,
and for a heartbeat the reflection lines up just rightso I can see the TV in the glass,
my own tired face, and the slow white curtain outside,
all stacked like alternate dimensionsarguing about what time it really is.
Out there, a pine branch bends under the weight of the fresh white accumulation,
drops a clump, shivers, and resets,
like even the trees are shrugging off the yearwithout needing a ball to drop or a host to scream about it.
The flakes fall steady, patient,
as if they know that midnight is just another costume humans put on a moment,
and underneath it, time still trudges along in the same worn boots.
The speakers explode with the final chant.
TenThe crowd howls, hands raised toward the sky as if begging the stars to sign something official.
Outside, a stray cat slips across the yard,
leaving a tattoo of delicate prints that will vanish with the first plow.
NineThe camera cuts to couples already leaning in,
which is cheating but the director loves an early payoff.
Snow clings to the brick across the street,
outlining old cracks like it is tracing old scars with cold fingers.
EightThe host’s teeth could light a small village.
Inside this room, the only light is the TV and the ember in the cheap candle we forgot to blow out.
The snow keeps falling,
fine and indifferent,
like static that decided to get poetic.
SevenEveryone is screaming as if they can shout themselves clean.
The fridge hums from the kitchen,
the most honest sound in the apartment.
SixA stranger on screen holds up a sign asking someone to marry him,
she nods and cries under the glitter storm,
their kiss broadcast to millions and archived forever.
Outside, a lamppost hums silently,
dusting its metal shoulders with the same snowfallthat once fell on people who never heard of electricity or high definition.
FiveThe room dips for a second,
the floor under my feet remembering the last time it shook with laughter that mattered.
The snow thickens,
hiding the edges of the world in soft white amnesia.
FourYou stir in the bedroom,
mumble something that might be my name or might be an apology to yourself.
I stay on the couch,
watching numbers drop like stones into a pond only humans can see.
ThreeThe crowd is now a single animal,
one huge throat howling the same wordless sound we call hope.
The snow does not speed up.
It never does.
TwoMy reflection in the window looks back at me,
almost surprised that I am still here after everything this year has thrown.
OneThe room erupts in canned cheering,
digital fireworks smear the sky on the screen,
neighbors bang on walls and pop cheap champagne in the hallway,
sparkling sugar and stale alcohol mixing into an odd perfume of survival.
The snow keeps drifting,
its own slow celebration,
tiny white scraps of time torn from a cloud and delivered by gravity.
The year changes its mask;
the weather does not flinch.
I turn down the volume until the screams are a thin buzz,
like an insect trapped in a jar somewhere behind the couch,
and just sit there a while,
listening to the quiet as it presses against the glass from the outside,
watching each flake choose its landing spot with ridiculous care.
For a silly moment I imagine the snow as confetti from some older, stranger party,
one held by things that do not care about calendars,
who toss their glitter down over us every nightand laugh at how we arrange our fear in twelve-month cages.
Another message hits your phone, another vibration against the cushion,
and I finally pick it up,
not to read, just to hold,
like proof that someone has thought of me in this loud, trembling second.
On screen, a singer belts a promise about new days,
voice climbing over a crowd that has already moved on to kissing and spilling drinks.
I stand, stretch muscles that went stiff an hour ago,
pad over to the window in sock feet,
press my palm to the cold paneuntil the heat from my skin leaves a blurred handprintlike a ghost trying to get back inside.
Outside, the snowfall thickens again,
blanketing the fresh footprints,
wiping out the last year’s evidence one small piece at a time.
In the reflection, my face, the TV glow, and the white hush all press together,
and for a second it feels like the only honest countdownis the soft, steady way gravity brings each flake home.