She twirls in the mirror, the silken skirt swishes around her knees with a gentle sigh, then falls still. Hand reaches to brush her gold hair for the last time before she sprays it with a fine mist. Lastly, a hint of colour to her lips and she is ready. One last look in the mirror tells her that she looks lovely tonight. Slowly she closes her eyes as though in prayer then, with a determined nod of her head she leaves the room and heads off to the party.
Smile and walk. Hold glass tightly to breast. Keep moving.
“Yes, lovely isn’t it? Wonderful food”.
Dancers glide. Laughter rings. Stand in corner. Still.
Glasses are charged and raised, the countdown begins. She is pulled from the shadows, smile firmly fixed into place. “Three, Two, One.. Happy New Year!”
Emptiness.
Couples gaze, whispers of promises made. Soft kisses exchanged.
Pain.
She slips away as the crowd link arms in preparation for “Auld Lang Syne”. Nobody notices her leave, so entranced are they by the colourful images of the brand new year, bursting like bubbles in each other’s eyes.
Home. Slips off coat and shoes, places evening bag on the bed. Looks in the mirror.
Emptiness.
8 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Mshumphreycushion's Blog 
Sad, but some lovely replies.
Dearest Humph, one of my highlights of 2010 was meeting you & your continued friendship is nice to have & I can only thank you for that. Hope to see you sometime in 2011 & I hope you & yours have a happy year, God bless xxx
See? i told you that you should write. Powerful stuff.
Lovely piece humph, and so true.
We apparently will be at my niece’s house on New Years Day, because that’s what’s *expected*. Except my kids have no intentions of setting foot in the place and nobody wants to face up to why, so they are pretending its because they will be too tired from tghe night before.
The sooner its over the better.
You’ll never be alone, Humph; not as long as you can type.
I think I’m luckier than most. I’ve had a couple of Christmases and New years on my own and enjoyed the solitude but I’m quite a solitary person anyway. I don’t like parties and prefer my own company to others’. I think tomorrow night Anne and I will shuffle off to bed before the Bells. We’re not going a-partying anyway.
I wish you and yours a peaceful New Year.
Nice one Humph!
Its that time again-Xmas and New Years Eve- its that time when we each have huge expectations of how the season is going to be. We’re drip fed all the “Peace and goodwill to all men”, – “bless us, every one” , bollocks. So we have this great expectation that its going to be fun fun fun all the way, in reality however its stress, stress stress all the way, we just dont see it. Things that do go well are great. BUT the things that go wrong, even a little, are magnified out of all proportion into disasters.
Apart from time off work Ive never been a fan and having experienced a close family bereavement right in the midst of it all, its now something I look forward to seeing the back of.
Keep yer pecker up missus – you’re not alone!
Bx
sounds familiar to me; only my skirt wasn’t silk . . . 🙂
The last words spoken to me on 23rd Dec., were people giving me their drinks order – I foolishly “bought a round” , for everyone (cost just under £40-). We then went to restaurant, noisy place true, but clearly it was TOO much effort then, so no one talked to me for next two hours. So excuse me if I too think Xmas/NYE is a pile of . . . x
Beautiful words hun, a sad tale…..