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3-2-1 Happy New Year

The television feed from Times Square in New York says "Live," but by all reports, the countdown to midnight in New York had taken place three hours earlier. Here, on the west coast, they had watched a new year roll across the planet. They imagine each time zone bursting into boozy renditions of Auld Lang Syne at one hour intervals. From Los Angeles, the Times Square ball dropped anew at 1200 precisely, as it had at 1200 one, two and three hours before in waves across the continental USA. This staggered staging of the precise ball-drop moment when 2015 ends and 2016 begins makes the two uncomfortably aware of the arbitrary nature of time and the artificial construct of a point in time where the reset button is pressed and the count returns to 1.

Still, they drank their champagne and sang those words of Auld Lang Syne that they could remember (could old acquaintance be forgot and hmmmm hhmmmm to mind... could old hmm hmm hmm doo do do and do do auld lang syne) and in the morning they mumbled white rabbit (at least, she did; he mumbled rabbit rabbit, because they remembered the rules of the new year superstition differently.)

They planned on pulling down the old calendar and putting up a new one like always, but they forgot and their smart phones slid a new day/month/year across their screen without fanfare. Besides, they liked the picture of the waterfall from December 2015 so time stood still in the hallway and flowed like liquid in their pockets.