The Winds Of Transformation

20251230

Written for Luna Asli Kolcu’s “Myths of Winter - Week 5” event.

Nobody said you shouldn’t be outside at midnight on the last day of the year. But they did take pains to warn you about the consequences.
It was the fact you didn’t know how you’d change which made The Last Exhale a source of great concern. While transformation could be good, it could also be… not. Perhaps you’d change in a way which didn’t make much difference. Your eye colour, for example. Or perhaps it would be a mildly inconvenient change, like suddenly being left-handed instead of right, and needing to replace all your scissors and computer mice and such.
Or… well. Folks still didn’t like talking about what’d happened to poor Timothy Greene. An unfortunate fate, that. Granted, his mum said he’d settled in very well at the zoo, and had even mentioned asking to be referred to a circus instead, but… still. Not a state anyone would volunteer for.
Most transformations weren’t like that, thankfully. But you could easily end up more impatient, or stressed, or whatever flaw was vexing you.
And if, like most people (be honest with yourself now), you were hovering around ‘mediocre’, well, equal distance to go in either direction. Best not to chance it.
But every year, as clocks ticked down the final hour, there were always people outside. Not many. In the grand scheme of things. But they were there.
Most hovered in their doorways. Safety within arm's reach. Thinking about it.
Some sat out in their garden, watching the sky. Waiting.
A handful walked the streets. Heads bowed, gaze fixed on their feet. Praying.
And a few, scattered across the town, stood out in the open, in empty carparks or one of the few fields. Postures defensive. Defiant. As if daring the world to prove them wrong, and somehow make them worse.
Whatever their reasons, whatever their fears, whatever weight they hoped would be brushed away by the last breath of the old, dying year…
Clocks chimed or rang or beeped, heralding the end.
And in that poised, liminal moment which belonged to no year… air stood still, and the breath washed over.
Happening between one second and the next, even if you didn’t blink, you’d likely miss it. Unless you were outside, in which case you felt it, right down to your marrow. A flutter. A quiver. A shift in the way things were. All the remaining potential of the year, spent at once.
Then the first tick came, heralding the beginning, and time continued on as it should.
Most of the doorway vigil-keepers had already gone inside. Deciding not to chance it. Arguably wise, for of those who’d felt the breath, the majority were disappointed. No matter what various myths told you, there was no controlling nor even shaping what changed. The change simply was.
Perhaps it was those pensive minutes leading up the breath, your mind full of the changes which could happen, and potential effects, which were important. A valuable weight to carry into new beginnings.

Prompt was “At midnight on the final day, the Old Year exhales one last time. Whatever that breath touches transforms. You can choose what to put in its path—but not how it will change.”