"Gimme another, would ya?" he shouted over the rumble of chattering voices and clinking glasses. Sam Freeman slid his dirty glass across the counter before grabbing at a square napkin to wipe off his thickly stubbled chin.
"You sure you can take it, Sammy?" asked Tim from behind the bar as he cleaned off the countertop with a large gray rag.
"Come on man, it's New Years," Sam answered, his hazel eyes still glazed from the previous drinks. Tim looked at him doubtfully, then sighed and poured him another drink.
The small TV in the corner of the bar had just begun the big countdown, its blue screen flashing the numbers as the announcer said them, "And it's 10... 9... 8... 7..." Sammy looked down at his drink, swirling the glass in his hand for a moment before drawing its cold hard rim to his chapped lips. "3... 2... 1... Happy New Year! That's it everybody, we're now in the year 2002!" Sammy glanced up to see scenes of fireworks, balloons and confetti streak past on the screen.
Everyone in the bar was shouting and cheering, their glasses in the air. Sam just sat there a moment before pulling out his wallet. He opened it and flipped past the empty clear sleeves where credit cards would normally have gone. From the back, he pulled out a worn photograph and held it in front of him. It featured a beautiful blond woman, the sunlight shining off her golden hair and bright red blouse as she sat in the grass holding a two year-old little girl who had matching blue eyes. Scribbled on the back with a pen it read, "Harmony & Tranquility Freeman, July 4, 2001." A single tear wandered down Sam's face and dropped into his glass while the others around him continued to cheer.
I wrote this in my high school creative writing class for a character sketch exercise. I then changed the names and a little of the descriptions so it would be more meaningful as a story related to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. You don't have to view it in that light, but if you want to, I'll explain the symbolism I used. Sam is supposed to represent "Uncle Sam" as in, the whole US, with the others in the bar being different countries. The barman is time itself and the two people in the photo are were lost in the attack. They represent what Sam held to be most dear and lost on that day, harmony and tranquility. Plus the whole red/white/blue thing with the woman's hair, blouse, and eye color of course represent the colors of the American flag.