New Year's Day

New Year's Day marks a brief return to routine and a renewed connection with Emily: after the telephone lines come back into service, the narrator waits at the phone tent and finally reaches her.

Setting and Everyday Routine

As the holiday approaches, the narrator describes shopping at small local stores for both necessities and extras. He buys a carton of Miami cigarettes for five dollars, with each pack priced at fifty cents, along with three cans of Wild Tiger energy drink and a box of Metro chocolate bars. He finds the Metro bars acceptable and the Wild Tiger especially appealing, comparing it to Red Bull with nicotine; despite its high price by local-shop standards, he is glad to have it.

The narration marks the date simply: New Year's Day arrives, followed by a brief greeting for the new year. The modest purchases and casual acknowledgment of the holiday place the celebration inside the routine of the deployment rather than setting it apart as a grand occasion.

The Call to Emily

With the telephone lines restored, the narrator goes to the tent containing the phones so he can call Emily. The phones had been out of service since Christmas because of deaths among the group. The restoration turns a long interruption into the possibility of contact, though access is not immediate: a queue has formed, and he has to wait for a line to become available.

He sits for half an hour with his calling card before entering his code and dialing Emily's number. When she answers, she says that she misses him, had been waiting for his call, and asks whether he is doing all right. The exchange makes New Year's Day a moment of personal reassurance after the silence imposed by the outage and the deaths that preceded it.