Never Thought I'd End Up Here

by Ann Liang

All around the hotel, for six floors down and as far as I can see, other travelers have hurried out onto their balconies to watch the fireworks too. Fathers balance their toddlers high up on their shoulders for a better view, happy couples wrap their arms around each other, mothers usher their children over from the bedroom. A gray-haired woman shakily retrieves her phone to start recording, maybe to send to her partner or her grandchildren. I don’t know any of them, and they might be traveling for a family holiday or a honeymoon or a business trip, and they could be from the neighboring town or halfway across the world, but we’re all standing here right now. And my heart swells at the silly, simple, human fact that when we stumble upon something beautiful, our first instinct is to show it to the people we love. It’s what we do with pretty seashells on a beach, a radiant sunset, a rare bird flitting through the trees, a herd of wild horses grazing in the countryside. Look, we say, saving these little pieces of beauty for each other. Do you see it too? Isn’t the world such a strange, lovely, breathtaking place?