It's New years in Paris. You're not quiet jet lagged from your flight back this morning, but rather exhausted by the mental implications of another five months in France.
You let the others make the plans and follow along in their footsteps up to Montmartre to watch the midnight light show that will supposedly take place near the Eiffel Tower. The others drink wine straight from the bottle but not you, you watch the crowds silently; happy to have a reason to celebrate but you'd be just as happy if you were ticked up warm in bed. "No regrets" the phrase that shaped your high school years/friends flutters through your head and you smile.
You stand guard on a wall clinging to the high medal fence waiting for the show to start. The crowd counts down more than once, no ones clock seems to be correct. You group all stares anxiously at their phones waiting for the time to pass, as if in one more minute the world will be irrevocably changed. But you know something that they don't want to hear, there are four, not one, minutes left until the New Year in Paris. Their clocks change and their excitement withers as they realize you were right. You hide your phone to keep them from wasting more time staring at a measure of something that is really only relative.
Just on time the light show begins, only it wasn't what the others expected. The sparkling Eiffel Tower looks just as it does at the top of every hour, every night. Sure fireworks are being set off here and there, even a few people in the near by crowd on the stairs of Montmartre are setting off fireworks, you are afraid someone will get hurt, but no one does.
Your group sets off through the crowds down the hill towards the Metro; the year is young and so are you, it seems fitting to make the most of it. The crowds are filled with friends you have yet to meet, Germans who share their sparklers with you just because you are nearby and smiling, in return your group searches their pockets for something to open a bottle with, eventual making use of a key. An old man holding a small but empty cups smiles at the bottle of champaign in your hand, you smile back and fill his little cup, good karma for the new year.
As you shoulder your way through the lines in the Metro you kiss all the strangers that pass, males, female old young, it doesn't matter, these people also think that some great unknowable change has just occurred, perhaps they are right. Most get kiss on both checks as is customary some on the lips some kiss hands or foreheads, wherever it is convenient for lips to meet skin as stranger-friends pass in opposite directions.
On the train someone is singing Opera, they slur their words together a bit as if intoxicated, but the notes sound right, the tempo is steady. You seek the person out, she is standing behind her tall and happy friend you steps aside when he realizes what you are looking for. The Opera singer is wearing a sequined bright red dress and a black fedora, she has every look of a young partier without a care in the world, but her voice tells you that she does care about something, she cares enough to have had herself trained.
The train cheers as she finishes and she catches you watching her and bows a bit unsure of her footing on the moving train, your group cheers louder encouraging her to take up another song but the train stops and it's time for your transfer, the singer gets off too promising to call her friend latter and finds your group in the crowed. Happy New Year! Bonn Année! and kisses on the checks are exchanged as if you've all been friends for years. She insists on speaking English and decides that she must make sure that you all get on the right train, and although you know exactly where you have to go you let her lead you through the crowds, discussing the under-appreciation of classical music as you make the walking transfer. "That is where you want to go, it's just a few more stops so don't forget to get off!" She says pointing towards line five. Once more kisses are exchanged along with have a great night! be safe! thank you so much! You all want her to feel as though she really was useful because her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You then hear your train rumbling in and hurry off down the stairs to make the platform before it does letting the night take you where it will.
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