Them. New Year’s Eve- New Year

"She vanished just as the year ended. I don’t know how else to put it." Annie’s husband was trying to explain what had happened to the police officer taking his statement, though he didn’t understand it himself.

"Was there anything out of the ordinary during dinner or the after-party?" the officer asked. "Was she acting normally?"

"Yes, everything was as usual. Nothing seemed strange at the time, and it doesn’t now either." He paused and looked at the two women beside him: his mother-in-law and sister-in-law.

Both shook their heads in agreement—everything had been as it always was. They had met Annie for their weekly Wednesday lunch, as they had been doing for the last—what?—fifteen years already.

Nothing had seemed unusual. She had been a bit burdened with all the Christmas preparations, but that was to be expected this time of year.

"What exactly do you mean by 'she vanished'?" the officer questioned again.

"Well, exactly that. We were all having a drink, waiting for midnight, at her parents' house," he explained, weary and growing more concerned by the minute. "We were all there, and suddenly, she wasn’t. We looked for her in the apartment, in the garden… Her coat and purse—with her phone inside—were in the room where she had left them when we arrived for dinner. But she was nowhere to be found."

He paused to take a deep breath. It was becoming difficult to breathe naturally, automatically.

"We—her mother, her sister, and I—decided to come home, in the unlikely event that she had left the party for some reason. But she wasn’t here either… She’s nowhere to be found. I’m starting to lose it. I don’t know what to think or do."

"No one saw her leave," Sarah, her sister, interrupted. "Not from the room we were in, let alone the apartment. There were ten of us there, including the staff, who, of course, we have to count… Sorry, I’m rambling. I tend to do that when I’m nervous."

"We are all utterly and completely bewildered," her mother interjected. "We cannot fathom what happened, where she is, or how she left without anyone noticing." She was starting to cry silently—not for the first time that night, the officer noted.

Sarah went to her mother and hugged her, trying to comfort the older woman, even though she couldn’t find solace for herself either.

The officer took it all in—their expressions, their undertones, their despair. Usually, the husband was the main suspect, but this case was too strange. For Annie to disappear from such a small, occupied space, without him leaving the premises, was certainly unusual.

She prepared to leave as Sarah spoke again: "What are the next steps? How are you going to find her without her phone or any trace?"

Those, the officer thought, were very good questions indeed.

Annie. Evening of December the 31st.

Annie sat in the taxi beside her husband on their way to dinner at her parents' house. Sarah, her husband, and their sons would be there, as well as her parents and the Wiltons

She stared out of the window, trying not to think, trying to suppress the unbearable wish that had been growing in her for days. She hadn’t felt like herself lately. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly what was wrong—"wrong" not even being the right word. She didn’t feel bad, or sick, or in pain… She was simply not her usual self. She felt lighter, clearer, more transparent.

Okay, now she wasn’t making any sense. How could anyone describe their state of mind as "transparent"?

Never mind. No one else seemed to have noticed anything unusual.

Not her husband, who was immersed in the chaos and whirlwind of the last weeks of the year. Every December, the finance firm where he was an associate acted as though the world would end if they didn’t complete an impossible list of tasks before the 31st. And yet, every January, everything continued as usual. This December had been another nightmare of long hours and extreme stress.

Not her sister or mother, always so quick to point out even the tiniest changes in her—"Have you gained weight? Isn’t your hair a little too long? Speaking of hair, shouldn’t you make your colouring appointment already?"—had said anything.

Not her best friends, Claudia and Isobel, though that was no surprise. They were usually more focused on themselves than anything or anyone around them.

Was this all in her head? It had to be.

And yet, for weeks, something had felt amiss. She had been living with an increasing sense of longing, of missing something. A sadness had settled within her. Somehow, she had started to feel as though she didn’t belong anymore.

Then, there were the strange "episodes," as she referred to them in her mind, unable to put them into words to tell anyone.

The first one had happened at the local coffee shop where she stopped every morning before running errands. Sally, who had been serving her for months and knew her latte order by heart, had simply ignored her for several minutes. It wasn’t that she was busy or distracted—Sally had acted as if Annie wasn’t even there. After five minutes of trying to catch her attention, Sally finally "saw" her and placed her usual order on the counter without a word of apology, as if Annie had just arrived that very second.

Annie had been so confused that she hadn’t even known how to bring it up. She had just left, unsettled.

The second time had been at the dry cleaners when she went to pick up her husband’s suits and her New Year’s Eve dress. Or rather, when she tried to pick them up. The woman behind the counter had simply not acknowledged her. After several attempts, and after other customers were helped ahead of her, Annie had finally given up and left without the clothes.

Those were just the first incidents. As the days passed, these "episodes" became more frequent, yet instead of unsettling her, they became comforting. It was liberating not to be seen, to be perceived. She no longer felt afraid or puzzled—she felt content. Each episode lasted a little longer, felt a little warmer, a little more like home

She began looking forward to those moments of respite, of becoming invisible.

At some point, she wished for them to become permanent.

There it was. Finally. She had put into words what she truly wanted. She simply wanted to escape her perfect, orchestrated life. She couldn’t cope anymore with the boredom, the predictability, the emptiness.

But she knew she could never leave. She wasn’t brave enough. She never had been.

So she treasured those moments of disappearance, of stepping outside of this reality and simply not being. She wished she could understand how they worked—so she could make them last.

Her desire for it to be permanent was so pure, so enormous, that it consumed her.

By the time they reached her parents’ house, it took every ounce of strength to get out of the car and face the evening ahead.

As the night went on, she became more certain: she wanted to stay inside one of these episodes forever. She willed "them" to come and take her away—to wherever she went when she wasn’t here.

What if that was it? Her true destiny? Her place?

As the clock struck midnight and everyone prepared to welcome the new year, Annie let herself go—into that wonderful sensation of not being.

She never heard the final chime.

She vanished as the year ended.

Raquel

@rhalemus

The final chime

rhalemus

The last chime

rhalemus