The Last Lunar

The fireworks were so beautiful it took her breathe away.
        It was this exact moment, standing alone in her front drive, watching the night sky lit up as bright as day, that bestowed this first day of the lunar year the stroke of magic. Anne sucked in the cool night breeze, the faint hint of burning crackers, candles and joss sticks at the edge of it soothed her nerves. 
        Back inside, a conglomerate of sound waves mixed and mingled-the pounds and beats of new year songs; greetings and wishings of the hosts and celebrities on screen; peals of shouts and laughter-blocking one another so that everything and nothing was being said at once. Not that it bothered her anyway. Instead, an odd comfort settled inside her. Anne realised it wasn't so much the mood of celebration was in the air as the sheer familiarity of it all. Even with her eyes closed, Anne could picture the shrine set elaborately with fruits and flowers and sweets; the kitchen stored to the brim with pineapple tarts, bee hives, kuih kapit and kuih bakul; the sparks of firecrackers charring the driveway's cemented ground.
        She didn't even need to count down to anticipate the stroke of midnight. On cue, a loud bang exploded. A white beam sliced through the overhead darkness and hemmorrhaged into a flood of bright illumination which was a palette of red, blue, green and purple. Then, just as seamlessly as it had started, it was over. But Anne knew better. Several seconds later, an entourage of sparks burst forth from all directions without a slight hiatus in between, like butterflies freed from a bottle, so that she was warmly surrounded by a world of hues.
        Peculiarly enough, Anne was reminded of the ancient parable of the Pandora Box-of how all forbidden human emotions were freed into the world, and how hope was the last thing you were left with when you had lost everything in life.
        Anne sighed deeply. Next year-and the five years in succession-she wouldn't be standing in her driveway. Instead, she would be miles away wishing she was anywhere but there. It wasn't so much the missing out of the celebrations as the absence of familiarity which scared her. The idea of losing her family, her friends, her home, and everything she had grown up with was too hard to stomach. By then, all Anne could look to was the only thing left in the world for her: hope. The hope that all bitterness would eventually passed; the hope that she could survive-and turned out a better person.
        "Hey, sis. Wanna light up these ground-skitters?" Her little sister was holding up a packet of rolled-up explosives-a kind of firecrackers which buzzed around the ground when lighted-and a lighter.
        "Sure." she laughed, and joined in the fun, more than ever determined to savour every last moment she had on this place she called home.