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Write a story about two people who don’t know each other but bump into one other on New Year’s Eve (either once or every year).

Posted in Holiday on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 39 stories

It Happens Once Every Year - But Then

Submitted to Contest #126

It is December 31, five o’clock in the afternoon, and I’m riding the elevator up to the annual Office New Year’s Party. I know a few things about what the party will be like. The food will be good.  The cafeteria cook is not involved in any of the cooking. She is just serving, as she does every year for this one particular meal. She doesn’t appear to be resentful. I guess she just has to swallow her feelings, like we have to do the meals that she cooks the rest of the year. The drink will be plentiful and ever flowin...

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Amelia and the Beautiful Big Red Handbag

Shortlisted for Contest #126 ⭐️

           Our first encounter was on New Year’s Eve. I was picking up a few last minute good-luck foods for the evening – black-eyed peas, cornbread, pickled herring, grapes – walking from my apartment to the grocer. It was cold. That’s what I remember first when I feel the memory in my senses, when I feel the depth of the memory. I feel how cold it was, how the sharp absence of smells in the air precipitated my noticing the details.I remember I noticed the last brown leaf hanging from ...

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Closed to Open

Submitted to Contest #126

Each of the seven years Natasha Wright had lived in the small New England town of Belfry, she had experienced a rare encounter on New Year’s Eve, though she’d never known it. There was only one dual coffee and pastry shop in town: Little Armaño’s, which sold the best danishes and fruit cakes in the country, as far as the residents were concerned. Even those people who came in from the far reaches of the world lauded the small shop and the husband and wife who ran it. Natasha always got the same thing at the same time. She’d come in near clos...

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New Years In the City

Submitted to Contest #126

The first yearIt was 10 o’clock when Amy rang the buzzer. The doorman waved her in when no response came from the apartment. The din of the New Years party had likely drowned out the sound. When the elevator doors opened a group spilled out that was raucous like they had just pregamed sufficiently for wherever they were headed.Amy rode up to the 9th floor and was only a little anxious when she opened the door. Her four year long relationship had ended with a whimper early in December and she was relearning how to do so many things, attending...

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Snow Angel

Submitted to Contest #126

I’d like to tell you about someone I met and forgot a few days back. I’m not sure why it feels so important to me. It was as insignificant as tracks I left in the snow last night before the snowstorm. But it does feel important, and so I’ll tell it. According to my shaky recollection, it went something like this. It was just before dusk on New Year’s Eve. I lived alone in a crummy apartment, where I had to bundle up in blankets to stay warm because the heater didn’t work. I was a fresh graduate. I had made several applications to legal fir...

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Twin Strangers

Submitted to Contest #126

My twin saved my life.  The problem is, I didn’t have a twin. I first met her at a New Year’s Eve party at my friend Phil’s parent’s house.  His parents were conveniently out of town for New Year’s Eve, so of course Phil invited two dozen of his “closest” friends over to celebrate.  At 18 years old, it was a thrill to be away from my parent’s house for New Year’s Eve, nursing a cheap beer I wasn’t old enough to drink, and dancing in my brand-new purple dress with friends old and new, waiting for the clock to str...

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Passing the Torch

Submitted to Contest #126

“You shouldn’t even be talking to me… Liam.” “I know, so keep your voice down, you damn miserable little squirt.”  “People see us talkin’ you’re gonna get in trouble.” “Well, you know, I used to think the same way when I was your age so I can’t really blame you for it.  But that’s not the way it all works, not really.  I kinda figured that out on the way, and… what did you say your name was again?” “I didn’t, ‘cus it’s none your business.  Why you askin’ about things like that anyway, my name and what I like?  Ar...

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Viral Love across Lockdowns

Submitted to Contest #126

[Note: references to pandemic and mental-health]It was New Year’s Eve 2019, a little over a month when the COVID-19 pandemic was born, but a good 3 months before it spread its tentacles and became global-news and a household name. People were blissful in their ignorance, oblivious to the creeping threat on the horizon. It was a festive time with a carefree style of celebration, with no concerns for veiling faces, baptizing hands, sanitizing surfaces, or three-dimensional cartesian spatial distancing of people like molecules in a crystal latt...

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Turning of the Years

Submitted to Contest #126

Bangkok, 31 December, 2021In this city, no-one goes to bed early. Unless, thought Ben, you mean the early hours of the morning. Krung Thep, City of Angels. No shortage of them, if that’s what you want. Right now, with ten minutes of 2021 remaining at 100.5 degrees east, what Ben Proust wanted most was a tasty meal. He sat down on the simple plastic chair, at the equally simple Formica-topped table, under the fluorescent tube’s honest glare, at the noodle stall on Sukhumvit Road. A patched street dog, lazing next to a concrete post, gave him ...

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Their own fate

Submitted to Contest #126

1° POV It was the New Years Eve and there I was again, apologizing for bumping into someone in the middle of São Paulo: -I'm so sorry, really... - I said as I picked up my books - I should've looked where I was going. - I smiled embarassed -It's okay. - A boys voice replied, I raised my face just to see a boy around my age, with a dark tone hair and amber eyes, it was strange that I knew him from somewhere? We got up from the ground and he started walking towards the street, something inside me screamed that I knew him from somewhere...

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On the Corner of Oak and Maple

Submitted to Contest #126

Carole stood on the corner of Oak and Maple Streets, her breath materializing as ghostly white puffs in front of her face. She stamped her feet and pulled her scarf more tightly around her neck in a futile effort to keep warm. It was achingly cold on the last night of this difficult year, as if 2021 was trying to prove a point. I’m not done with you yet! Let’s see how miserable I can make you in the few hours I have left!She sipped from the chai latte clasped between her gloved hands, and felt grateful for the sweet, spicy warmth that slid f...

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Star Crossed

Submitted to Contest #126

She sat at the bar of a fancy hotel on New Year’s Eve. She liked to think of herself as social enough. Meaning that she went out enough to stay under the radar, to not arouse suspicion about why she was such a hermit, but not enough to draw attention or make any lasting impressions. Sure, it was nice to be well-known and stand out. But, at this point, she’s learned the beauty of anonymity and going unnoticed; a true blessing in disguise, at least for her. She could see the appeal of celebrating New Year’s. Saying goodbye to the past and we...

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The Closet

Submitted to Contest #126

“From all of us here at WKTL Radio, have a happy and safe New Year! Drive sober everyone. Remember: It's not worth your life, nor someone else's.” The familiar voice on the radio gave one last plead for good judgment before being replaced by 80's pop songs. Stephen turned the volume down as he pulled up to a pump at the local 7-Eleven. He briskly walked across the parking lot. The weather was unusually mild for December, but there was still an undercurrent of a chill when the wind blew. Stephen pulled the door open, and walked into welcoming...

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Subway Strangers

Submitted to Contest #126

How many messages could that have been by now?Soraya was far too afraid to even peer at the eager messages compiled of complaints and requests sent by her manager. She felt the phone continue to vibrate in her pocket begging to be answered during what was supposed to be her break. Her lips softly muttered profanities under her breath as she glanced over the times for each of the subway trains. Her concentration was interrupted by a buzzing at her side once again. Soraya snatched out the phone to silence the incessant reminders of her horribl...

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Nothing Changes

Submitted to Contest #126

Oscar Whiteford walked off the stage, not entirely displeased by the applause still sounding in the crisp December air. The mayor – a stocky, efficient woman loved by everyone – stepped forward to congratulate him on another fantastic New Year’s greeting.Oscar accepted the paper cup of mulled wine one of the organisers handed him. His throat felt dry as it always did after giving a speech. After all the years of public speaking, he still felt like he had to raise his voice, microphone or not.He strolled out of the tent where the evening’s ne...

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