A New Year

Fireworks went off around her, letting Linda know it was officially 2012. Sadly, she felt nothing different from what she'd felt a few minutes before. She couldn't help but wonder why people put stock in this particular night. It was as if they thought the turn of one year into another somehow changed everything; wiped it clean and made it shiny new once again. In truth, it didn't change a thing.

Pulling her thin blanket tighter around her thin body, she tried pretending that she was in Miami in the Florida sunshine. People told her thinking warm thoughts were supposed to help. That was another lie. Nothing helped to keep the wind from biting into her flesh.

Linda St. James had been homeless for six months now. She lost her job and had been unable to find another. At first she stayed with friends, confident that she'd soon find new work. That lasted for a few weeks and then they wanted her out just as her landlord had once she'd exhausted her pitiful savings.

She was 27 and had a college degree. That did her little good when no one was hiring -- especially her. In fact most companies in town were being forced to lay workers off. A lot of her friends were out of work too. Unlike her, however, they had family to help them. Linda was alone.

Picking up a mirror she'd found in a trash can the day before, she stared at her reflection in the harsh neon light of the nearby streets. She looked older than 27 already. Her once shiny blonde hair was dull and dirty. Her skin was sallow and beginning to wrinkle from fat loss. Her teeth were dingy and yellow. Her blue eyes looked haunted. She didn't recognize the girl looking back at her.

She threw the mirror at the wall across from her and watched it shatter into a million pieces. That was her life. It consisted of nothing more than broken fragments.

In the distance sirens wailed and for just a moment Linda hoped they'd come her way. She'd go something to get herself arrested just to spend one warm night in jail and enjoy a decent meal. However, the noise muffled, indicating the police were headed elsewhere.

It was supposed to freeze tonight. Linda worried that her cardboard box wouldn't offer much protection as the snow began to fall. Still, she couldn't think about that now.

Music began playing from somewhere nearby. Linda closed her eyes and let it float around her. It provided an odd sort of warmth to her soul. At least that was something. Slowly, she drifted off to sleep as snow flakes began to fall.

The bright sun woke her early. Linda thought it odd that she didn't feel the least bit cold. Snow covered every surface she could see.

Then an odd thing began to happen. She felt herself drifting up from the ground and hovering over what looked like her own body. The rag doll she stared at bore little resemblance to the girl she knew though. She felt she had to be mistaken.

"Poor girl," a male voice said as he tried to peel the cardboard away from her body. "What was a beautiful girl like her doing out here on New Year's Eve."

"You're joking right?" A tart redhead threw back at him. "She was homeless you moron. Just like all the other people we've been trying to rescue for the last two years."

"I know she was homeless. But how does someone that young and beautiful really end up this way. You know that most of our rescues are much older than her."

"Most, yes, but not all," the girl rambled as she shuffled through Linda's things looking for a clue to her identity. In a pillowcase she found a diary. Opening it she found herself getting misty eyed. "Her name was Linda. She was 27. She got laid off when the bank closed this past summer. She was an accountant. From the looks of it, she applied for dozens of new jobs but got turned down because of her previous employer. It says here that some people even spit on her when they found out where she worked before."

"I don't get it," the male said. "I know a lot of people blame the banks for everything these days, but can they really be that short-sighted. No single business or even group of businesses is responsible for our financial chaos. It's much broader than that. Certainly the lower level employees of those businesses can't be held at blame. They're just trying to get by like everyone else."

"Yeah, well nothing that's simple anymore. People want someone to blame. Sadly, Linda paid for it with her life. It says here that even her friends turned on her eventually. She had no family either. That's how she ended up here." The woman couldn't hold the tears back anymore. She grabbed Linda's hand and sobbed uncontrollably.

"How many more people have to die before we get our act back together again. This is my 37 ^th failed rescue. I don't know how much more of this I can take."

The man got up and walked over to his partner. Lifting her up, he cradled her in his arms. "If we give up, they'll be many more people found dead," he assured her. You've lost 37, but you saved over 100. That's what you must focus on, Jen."

As he went to call the paramedics, his partner knelt back down and pulled Linda in her arms. She held the dead girl that way until the ambulance arrived.

It was the last sight Linda saw and the one that meant the most to her as her soul drifted off into the heavens. One stranger offering her comfort even in death. It was going to be a Happy New Year after all.