Work Text:
My brother swung my door open. “Come on, let’s go for a drive,” he said excitedly.
“Where though?” I asked, barely looking up from my work.
“I don’t know. Somewhere…open.”
I turned my attention to him, an incredulous look surely painting my features. “Why?”
“To light fireworks, dumbass. It’s almost the new year!”
Glancing at the clock and date at the corner of my computer screen, I sighed. “Finally. This year can finally be over.”
“C’mon! I’ll get the fireworks.”
When I finished my final thought for the paragraph I was writing, I grabbed my coat, some mitts, and started looking for my keys. Dread sat in my stomach when I couldn’t find them, and my mind immediately went to some eldritch being stealing them from me so I couldn’t celebrate the new year properly. But, when I looked out to where my car was on the driveway, I saw my brother already sitting in it.
No creatures from the beyond to contend with tonight, I thought with a heavy sigh as I raced out the door.
He’d pulled up a location on Google Maps, so I just drove, following the turn by turn instructions. Every so often, they interrupted the superfluous flow of rap music he played, which was a welcome interruption.
We drove and drove through an expansive stretch of road through a forest of birch and oak. Everything was dusted lightly in snow, making the terrain sparkle.
Finally, we arrived at our destination––an expansive field in the middle of nowhere.
“Well,” I said, putting the car in park, “we’re here.”
“Perfect timing!” My brother exclaimed.
I glanced at the clock: 11:45.
“Let’s set them up!” He quickly grabbed the fireworks from the car and set them up a good distance away while I stood outside, leaning on the car and watched the time.
Periodically, I called out things like “10 minutes!” or “3 minutes!”
“Okay!” he shouted over the distance between the car and the fireworks. “I’m lighting them!”
As he did, he did most of them at once before sprinting back to me. I, of course, filmed his antics and the fireworks going off above us.
As they soared to the heavens, they sliced through the slowly falling snow, their flames lighting the sky.
Soon, the loud booms of fireworks filled our ears and the bursts of coloured light reached our eyes. My nose and fingers were starting to get cold by the time the last firework died out, its iridescent remains drifting to the ground like snow.
“Happy New Year, dumbass,” my brother said, turning to me from where he leaned against the hood of the car.
I laughed. “Happy New Year. Let’s hope this year is better for us.”