The last day of an old year

I swore to stay sober, and not a drop of it mingled with my blood, only coffee and too many cups at that. I, for once, wanted to see what I was getting myself into, wanted to make sense of the faces passing one by one in the arbitrary night, and when the remnants of exploding light faded to a smolder falling from the sky in a lone streak like the glow of a cranky radio dial, I wanted control of where it was all going, to shift the knob past weak frequencies and finally find a place without static. Desert days made for a barren December and the sky, stooped so low it kissed the cracked dirt, gave nothing but cold expectations. For twenty-eight days I stayed inside trying to recreate a face in the dust of hindsight, ill from eating only bread and fogged from the shakes, pacing the house from kitchen to foyer waiting for a signal, peering out windows every twelve minutes for the slightest inkling of moisture or a sign from the heavens, only to discover two young girls, who in the half light of the last hours of the last evening of the last month looked like twins; sisters peddling penance and wind chimes for a church down the way. I shooed them along to the neighbors, considering they could not raise the dead and, being short on cash, I could not contribute to their saving. With the door safely shut, I hurried to prepare coffee as the girls wandered the sidewalk from house to house armed with abstinence and a chorus of good intentions, the peal of chimes clamoring a symphony with every step against the frozen concrete, each bell its own voice and distinctly clear.