New Year’s Eve 1999 by Rachel Smith

They said it would be the end of it all, that all the computers in all the world would stop working, so we took out extra cash to buy beer and drugs and food for the weekend.

We never made it to the stage where the bands were playing. We got stuck in a street full of people, and we didn’t care because everyone was drunk and everyone was laughing and there were hands to hold and faces to kiss and always someone was queueing for the portaloos.

We missed the countdown and neither of us gave a fuck because by then what did it matter, and we climbed the hill in the cold grey dawn and waited for the sunrise that never came.

Biography
Rachel Smith writes flash fiction and poetry in Aotearoa New Zealand. She has been published in journals and anthologies including Best Small Fictions 2020 and Best Microfiction 2019. She is an editor at Flash Frontier. @rachelmsmithnz1 | rachelmsmithnz.wix.com/rachel-smith

Image: unsplash.com