Colorful Stick

The illusion of freshness, and a new chapter in a non-existent book. The feeling that everything horrible that happened is left behind between the dusty pieces of the past even though they all were on your shoulders just a couple of hours ago. Fireworks going off, children screaming, fake and real snowflakes mixing in the air. The lights turning on and off, torturing easily irritated people, vibrant colors swarming off.

Rene took her eyes off the window and took a deep breath. She was watching the whole thing like it was happening in the next-door dimension. She was seeing everything, hearing them, unfortunately by the way. However, she was not feeling it. She was more like a New Year ghost coming to observe the whole thing without being able to interact with reality.

It was the 31^st of December again. It was a duty rather than a holiday to her. Everything seemed to go in the opposite direction though, it was backwards. For everybody, this day represented a new beginning, a chance to push off the negativity. For her, it was a replay button for everything she wanted to get rid of.

It was even funny to her to some extent, what were people celebrating exactly? Exactly, nothing. Because she believed, it had a certain special meaning to each person. Everyone believed it to be something special, some source of motivation, reminder, energy, hope. Just in a weird way, the people, the same people having stupid fights and wars because of in and out-group biases, managed to agree on one day to celebrate their hope. A desperate attempt to feel solidarity in this widely divided society, with people who have the same problems shaped in millions of different ways. Seeking warmth in the arms of crystal white snow. 

Rene was one of those people with pink glasses, ignoring their inner screams of agony and shouting with joy to be louder than their demons. It is how people were wired, after all. They needed a day off, otherwise, they would go insane thinking about everything that was wrong with themselves and everything else. There was too much cruelty in the world, too much hate, what was wrong with picking a few days, declaring them special and having fun? If it was what it took to make people happy for even a few hours, then the hell with it, why not?

None of this was bothering Rene. But every single person having fun with their stupid fireworks and all was like stepping on her toes. No, that is a ridiculous comparison. To Rene, every single person having fun with their stupid fireworks was using her pain as a source of their pleasure. They were enjoying as much as she was suffering. Rene would like to go to every person, grab them by their collars and scream at each one. Although there were too many people, and none of them would understand. Having a voice, yet not being heard. The tall buildings, the whole celebration was swallowing her. People were shielding themselves with everything fake, starting from objects to emotions. They were becoming deaf while hearing, and blind while seeing. It was making Rene feel so powerless. She tried though, she tried to scream at people to cut it out. She could not get a single person to stop, however. The day it happened she tried her best to change someone’s mind about the whole thing, nonetheless, she saw nothing but emptiness in every pair of eyes that she stared.

It was the New Year. She took her best friend and went for a walk together to celebrate it. To enjoy the colors, music, the snow. Her friend was particularly afraid of loud noises. But it was okay because, at that hour, almost nobody was using the fireworks yet. Everyone was saving their exploding toys for the big countdown.

She was not exactly fond of this chaos, because the noises were always scaring her best friend. But they were spending every noisy holiday together and she was managing to calm her best friend down. This was not pleasant, but they were managing to go through it with grace. They were hoping this one would not be any different.

Rene bought a pretzel to eat and sat down on a bench to look around and feel small in the face of huge colorful trees all around. Then she decided to play a game with her friend. Her name was Lucy. Lucy got so excited about it. She was always so friendly and generally excited about pretty much everything. Those were only a few of the reasons why Rene loved her so much.

She took a branch of a tree from the ground and threw it away. Lucy ran after it even before the branch fell down. She went, took it and brought it back, and they kept doing it until Rene was finished with her pretzel. Then as it was approaching the countdown, they got going. After a few blocks, she noticed a couple of teenagers giggling in the corner. But for some reason, it did not really give out a positive vibe. Rene tried to ignore it and just kept walking. Then Lucy noticed a colorful stick on the ground and Rene did not even have enough time to tell her off. There were red lines and drops on the snow like a painting on canvas. Those teenagers started running still laughing even louder. Rene was filled by murderous rage but there was no time to lose. She took her best friend and called a taxi to go to the nearest veterinary.

They tried a lot but Lucy was small and, the exposure was big for her little body. She could not take it.

That was something that nobody with a sane mind could easily forget. Let alone if that is the best friend.

Rene kept celebrating the new year though, but in a different way. At every holiday in which the place was turning into the colorful warzone of fireworks she was trying to gather all the stray animals around her block, give them food, and keep them somewhere safer so they would not be afraid. In the New Year, she tried extra hard. She would go around collecting the firework stuff from the ground with tools, for hours. Some of them even exploded and in every blow, she was relieving the red painting on the snow. Everybody was wondering why a crying girl was picking up the litters from the ground on every New Year. She would get her friends to do it too. So in this way, they could make a tiny difference in the world deaf to the screams of everything that was not human.

She did not put up the new year decoration, and her family would respect it. She was always decorating their tree though because Lucy loved it. She was trying to raise awareness about the fireworks’ effect on animals too, with posters, articles, informing people one by one. Whatever it took. But it did not deny the fact that there was always some little dog or cat trembling, making sad noises, some of them getting injured too. 

However, she knew she could not stop. It was the New Year. She had to get up, decorate the tree, pick up the fireworks, go and give out the informative brochures to her neighbors. At 00:00, gather the stray animals and keep them somewhere closed and warm. The next day take the injured animals to the vet.

The New Year Eve, it meant something special, different to every person. And the same terror to every breathing thing that was not human.