A New New Year

New Years. 400 words, 2 minute read. With Claude Sonnet.

Sarah hunches over her desk, her shadow dancing against the wall as fireworks burst outside her apartment window. Her new leather-bound journal – still stiff-spined and perfect – lies open before her. The tip of her tongue pokes out slightly as she writes, the same way it did when she drafted her "Yoga Every Day!" schedule last January. That schedule now serves as a coaster for her half-empty wine glass.

"You're doing that thing again," she mutters, scratching out a line in her journal. Her shoulders tense under her oversized sweater.

What thing, I wonder, though we both know exactly what she means.

"That... hovering. That judgey narrator voice in my head." She spins her chair around, the wheels squeaking against hardwood. "I can practically hear your inner monologue comparing this to the great sourdough disaster of 2023."

At least that one made it to March. Though I have to admit, naming the starter 'Bread Pitt' showed promise. I had laughed - as much as the concept of a fourth wall breaking narrator can be said to laugh.

Sarah throws her pen at me – or rather, through me, since I'm not exactly corporeal. It clatters against the wall. "God, you're insufferable. This year is—"

Different? I raise an eyebrow, metaphorically. Like the pottery class was different? Or the meditation app subscription?

"A story a day," she says, retrieving her pen. Her voice carries none of the defensive edge I expected. Instead, there's something quiet and sure in it that makes me pause. "That's my resolution. Three hundred sixty-five stories."

Three hundred sixty-four now, I feel obliged to point out.

Sarah looks down at her empty journal page, then back up at me with an unexpected glint in her eye. A slow smile spreads across her face – not the familiar forced optimism of past resolutions, but something craftier.

"You know what?" She taps her pen against the page. "You're right. Time is wasting. So let me tell you about this narrator I know, who's about to become the unwitting protagonist of my first story..."

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