As twenty aught six draws to a close, we can look back upon the year and truly comprehend how much it was a time in which things undeniably happened. From the very first happenings to the very last happenings, which as I write these words are still in the process of becoming things that have happened, and therefore are yet things that will have happened, each happening enters our group conciousness for an ever-fleeting moment of awareness before rattling around and falling out the hole in the side that we forgot to patch up last year.
Time and time again this year, we looked at our watches, at our calendars, at our organizers, and at the microwave clock that we forgot to reset after the last power-outage, and we knew with a certainty derived from having done it only a minute earlier that now — which is to say it was then, but at the moment in which we thought about it, it was still “now” — now is the time in which we are living, and the last minute earlier is no longer “now” at at all.
With these weighty thoughts pressing on the year’s final moments, 2006 edges towards the precipice of history, below which lies a cascade of tumultuous years that gather dust and become homes for small rodents who use the digits to build nests for their young. I would like to pause for a moment, at the very brink of the dark abyss of 2007 and raise high a beacon to light the way forward: To all who have travelled with me, near me, and occasionally in the opposite direction to me for as many days as there are in the year, of which each is numbered consecutively and unrelentingly from 1 to 365, I wish you a very happy and enjoyable new year! May your days be lively and prosperous, may your refrigerators be always full of your favourite beverages and snacks, and may each of your minutes arrive consecutively and in the order in which they were expected.
Happy 2007, everyone!