Year’s End

By Samuel Barnwell

The desperate onlookers counted down from ten. Fireworks blasted from houses and cheers let out as 2020 finally ended. Year of suffering. Year of pain. Year of disease. Year of loneliness. While this may have been its end, there weren’t any hugs, no midnight kisses, not even handshakes.

Instead the crowds stood organized, spaced perfectly six feet apart. This may have reduced the spread, but it also meant that no one was there to catch the fainting people as the date changed. As the 8-bit screen in London, England, clicked to 00:00, the words failed all hope: “Friday, December 32nd, 2020.”