- Olivia Brooks
- Sep 15
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 22
New Years
There was the New Year’s Eve that began
with a call from the hospital. A few hours
before midnight, results were read. Risks
mentioned. Rates laid out. What could be
removed—what couldn’t. After my mother’s
tumor board hung up, I walked into town
to buy champagne. She insisted that we still
celebrate the year. That year had already been
particularly cruel. Front-page pictures of disasters,
headlines had run without words. What could be
said or written? Walking the empty city streets,
snow falling across the frozen river, curtaining
Montreal’s mountain cross, all I had were tears
and money to drink. What’s left for the future
to destroy? a man asked God in the liquor
store parking lot. Drunk in the living room,
watching the year end on television, I forgot
the street preacher but remembered the sign he held
—LAST DAYS written on cardboard. All I want
is hope, just a little, my mother said as a shower
of confetti bathed strangers, smiling as they left
the past and entered a future the CNN news ticker
forecasted, at the bottom of the screen, with war,
collapse, displacement. I reached for my mother's
hand as four neon numbers flashed from the dark.
The beginning and end were rung in. Champagne
was poured and drunk. Tears fell from faces. Mouths
were sealed with a kiss. We watched people celebrate,
second after second, the promise of another tomorrow.
TERENCE HAWES is a writer from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. While currently studying to be a clinical psychologist at McGill University, he writes in his spare time. Terence is a thirteen-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, serving as a reservist in the infantry. You can read his work in Yolk, Acta Victorina, Northern New England Review, and elsewhere.