Emily Titsworth
The blurred outline of a room becomes sharp and focused as the camera lens rattles and whirs. A woman in her mid-twenties is sitting in the middle of the frame. She stares directly into the lens before her gaze skirts around the room.
“Do you need me to do anything?” She asks, looking past the camera.
“Nope, you’re good, I just want to make sure everything is working properly before we start,” a male voice responds from behind our point of view.
“Is it recording already?”
“Yep. There should be a red light flashing on the front by the lens.” “Okay, yeah. I see it.”
“Cool. So if you could just say who you are and your title, that’d be a great place to start.” The shuffling of papers can be heard in the background as the woman inhales sharply.
“Ready?” She grins, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Ready.”
…
The first time Jack had come home from college, he made the mistake of briefly mentioning how the majority of his nights were spent staying up late. His mom, as moms seemed to usually be, was appalled.
“It’s not healthy to stay up that late, Jack! You need to get sleep,” She had exclaimed before going off on one of her standard “you’re my only son, please be careful” rants Jack had grown accustomed to.
He assumed that his mom thought he was staying up so late because he was going on blackout benders every other night because “that’s the hip thing the youth do” and “she was in college once, she knows how it works.” He didn’t bother telling her otherwise. It was easier for her to think that than for Jack to try to summon all of the thoughts and feelings he had experienced and form them into words. Although abandoned and creepy had once been synonymous, everything changed once Jack had moved away from his small hometown and started college in the city outskirts. He wasn’t sure what it was, but something about how skyline looked in the early morning light made him feel invincible. He felt like he could take on the world. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, maybe it was the people he was spending time with. Either way, Jack lived for the nights where he hardly slept at all.
The rush of exhilaration he felt when he would glance at the time and realize that he could stay up the rest of the night to watch the sunrise just as easily as he could go to sleep probably wasn’t healthy or normal by any means, but he found something hopeful in that feeling. It was probably because he was tired.
Jack’s favorite and least favorite part of the night was when the birds started to chirp. Something in their musical sound makes reality come crashing down on him. The way he saw it, you could lie to yourself about the time all you wanted, but the birds and their song told the truth. All of the memories he cherished, of sledding during the first substantial snowfall, of sneaking onto the roof of the science building to watch the stars, of campus-wide hide and seek, all started between the hours of 12 and 3 A.M. Maybe that’s why he claimed to feel most inspired late at night. His mom didn’t understand it, but if only she could see him now.
He was sitting on the rooftop of his apartment complex with the wind blowing through the fabric of his sweatshirt, a hint of autumn in the chill. Smoke swirled into the night and towards the stars as the nicotine coursed through his veins and burned the back of his throat. The sky had started to turn-gradually changing from black, transforming into reds and golds at the horizon, pinks and lavenders seeping and spreading outward across the sky.
Lights from the apartments across the street slowly blinked to life, their tenants coming out of their slumber. The only light Jack seemed to notice, though, was the dim, artificial light shining from his laptop screen.
…
“Can you tell me about the name?”
“What do you mean by that exactly?” She responded, voice unsure. This was a big deal for Jack. Hell, it was a big deal for all of them. She didn’t want to screw things up or make things harder when it came to editing just because she didn’t understand the question.
“How’d you guys come up with it? It’s definitely an interesting name. I doubt many people would come up with a name like that.”
She laughed; it was a question they had frequently been asked. “You’ll have to ask Oliver about that one. All I can say is that we were at a point in our lives where we wanted people to think we were far edgier than we ever were or ever will be.”
…
Jack had hit the lull period that people face when they pull an all-nighter, the part full of self-loathing and an urgency for caffeine. As he trudged down the stairs, trying to carefully balance his open laptop and unlock the door, exhaustion became more and more apparent as he realized dully that all of his concentration had to be put to use in not dropping his computer while sliding the key into the lock.
Jack kicked the door shut behind him as he made his way into the cramped kitchen. It looked like it hadn’t been remodeled since the early nineties; the bathroom was in the same condition as a college dorm’s, and the bedroom hardly fit his bed.
His friends constantly asked why he would want to live somewhere so small, and when he would try to explain why he was drawn to his shabby apartment they would just smile and sigh, saying he was living up to the starving artist stereotype.
When he had first gotten a tour of the empty apartment, all he could think of was the potential it had. Sure it was small and outdated, but it had large windows that filtered sunlight into beams across the wooden floors and white tiled floors in the kitchen and bathroom that contrasted with the mustard yellow sinks. The apartment wasn’t something that was ever going to be featured on HGTV, but renting it was the first thing he had done on his own. It was home.
Back when Jack was a child, he had always dreamed of having a home of his own. He had imagined a mansion with seemingly never-ending ceilings and a giant swimming pool that looked like a speck in his spacious backyard. He wanted all of the things he and his mom hadn’t had.
Growing up, it was just him and his mom. Jack’s dad was in some far off state on the opposite side of the country living a life without him. Jack had never really grasped why his father wouldn’t want to stick around; he was a good kid and saw his mom as a queen. His mom would remind Jack that even though he thought she was a queen, his dad’s happily ever after didn’t include her. She was okay with that, so Jack was too.
…
“My mom was an English major in college. So she’s the kind of person that sees significance in every word, ya know? She’s one of those.”
“Sorry, what does this have to do with the band name?”
“I’m getting to that, Jack. Anyways, her senior year she was in this Victorian literature class, right? One of the first authors the class focused on was Charles Dickens. She claims it changed her life, and my name is a result of that life-changing, only meet twice a week course… Stop laughing!”
“I’m not laughing!”
“You’re grinning. Like a jackass. A Jack-ass, get it?” “Very clever, Oliver. Your best yet, honestly”
Jude sighed, sitting beside Oliver and picking at his nails, “Can we get back to the name please?”
“Hey Jude, refrain, will ya? Anyways, I was reading Oliver Twist, to get in touch with my namesake, ya know? And Dickens refers to street urchins a lot and I thought that was cool. I mentioned it to everyone, and it sort of stuck.”
Jude looked over to Jack once Oliver was done with his explanation, “Is visual profanity allowed in this documentary of yours, Jack?”
“Do whatever you want, man.” Jack responded as Jude turned to Oliver, promptly flipping him off, causing Oliver to burst into laughter.
“What was that for?!” Oliver asked.
“You know why,” Jude grumbled.
“Why is Jude flipping Oliver off?”
“Luce, you missed it. I made a great Beatles pun,” Oliver said proudly, looking past the camera.
“I doubt it was great, seeing as none of your Beatles puns are funny.”
“That’s another dollar in the ‘Bad Beatles puns that Jude is Tired of’ Jar!” Donnie called out from the other room.
“Dammit.”
…
It took every ounce of Jack’s being to walk past his open bedroom door and ignore his large, comfortable bed that was practically begging him to sleep for the next twelve hours as he made his way into the kitchen.
An aloe vera plant sat on his windowsill warming up in the sun that had risen into the sky, its leaves spilling over the small pot it was housed in.
As he desperately waited for the coffee to brew, the grating of the coffee beans music to his ears, he thought back to his freshman year of college.
Back then, Jack believed he was at his peak-his style was what he thought impressive for a freshman guy and his looks were far better than they were his freshman year of high school. However looking back, he understood why his friends had always scored dates and he hadn’t. College girls loved musicians; guys with a baby face and too much product in their hair-they didn’t like all that much. Now, he was comfortable. With his messy hair, dark wardrobe, and green eyes framed by wide-rimmed glasses, Jack practically screamed “I’m an artist!” at anyone who even glanced in his direction. That was only half true, of course. While his looks and passions epitomized brooding artist, he still watched crappy reality TV shows with his mom; he remembered all the songs from the Disney movies he watched when he was a kid; he loved dogs more than anything, and the last Harry Potter movie always made him cry.
When it came to craft, though, Jack was fully devoted to photography and filmmaking. He blamed his innate obsession on his grandpa.
There wasn’t a time in his life that Jack wasn’t thinking about photography. Hell, his earliest memory was him tugging on his grandpa’s sleeve, practically dragging him into the spare bedroom and straight to the worn-down trunk that sat in the corner. He would sit down, wide-eyed as his grandpa pulled out his old camera and explained how everything worked. Aperture, ISO, exposure-they were all second nature to Jack.
Jack gently set his laptop down on the small, wobbly kitchen table, swiping his pointer finger over the mousepad to make sure the laptop was still on.
The gray screen was blank except for:
Rendering: 32% COMPLETE
…
“You know how you feel like photography is sort of your calling because of your grandpa, Jack?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, with a name like Jude, you sort of have to go into music, ya know? It’s my calling. If I don’t, I’ll put The Beatles to shame and no one wants that.”
“Besides Yoko!” Oliver called out.
“Besides Yoko,” Jude confirmed, looking directly into the camera.
…
Every college had its superstitions. Jack’s university wasn’t any different. Certain parts of campus, or so many believed, were haunted. This superstition spread among the students for two seemingly obvious reasons: campus was built in the early 1900s and people had died there. A non-believer, Jack hardly paid any attention or worried about having to walk across campus late at night. Jack hadn’t known the campus was “haunted” anyways until his roommate had brought it up one of their first nights at school. There they were, finally about to fall asleep after hours of unpacking boxes and semi-awkward small talk, when Jack heard Donnie swear under his breath from across the room.
“What’s up?” Jack asked groggily, rolling over and squinting into the dark to see his new roommate.
“Sorry, it’s nothing. I just remembered that this campus is supposed to be super freaking haunted. Like, what am I supposed to do if I wake up and there’s a ghost standing over me, trying to watch me sleep?”
Jack would have laughed if it weren’t for the perplexity in Donnie’s voice. “That’ll never happen, man. I won’t let any ghosts Edward Cullen you.”
The silence in the room was thick, before Donnie finally responded. “Did you just make a Twilight reference?”
“I won’t tell anyone that you’re afraid of ghosts if you don’t say anything about that.” “Deal.” It was at that point that all worries Jack had about his roommate disappeared.
The ghosts had quickly left Jack’s mind and hadn’t returned until one night when he and Donnie walked across campus, eyes the size of saucers, refusing to glance up into any of the windows in fear of seeing something paranormal.
Jack had practically forgotten about the “ghosts” until he and Donnie were walking back from a party one night. Everything was fine, they were just talking about the party, when Donnie stopped abruptly.
“Did you see that?” He asked, staring up into one of the windows of an academic building.
“See what?” Jack responded, liquor in his system making his brain a bit fuzzy.
“I swear I just saw something move in that upstairs window,” Donnie whispered melodramatically, shakily pointing up into the dark window.
“See what?” Jack asked again, getting frustrated.
“A ghost.”
…
For the last time, you’re being ridiculous. There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Jack said, flopping down on his bed and scrolling through his phone.
“Yes, there are, dude! You just didn’t see it,” Donnie responded from the floor, tapping out a beat muffled by the carpet.
Before Jack could utter up a response, a girl stumbled through the door.
“Whoops, sorry,” she said, standing up straight when she realized she was in the wrong dorm room.
Jack had seen her around before; he was pretty sure she lived on the floor above them and he had definitely seen her at the party they had left. He almost couldn’t place her without the dance music thumping overhead and the dim lights. She looked like a completely different person in the harsh light of their dorm room.
Traces of black eyeliner were smudged under her eyes; her lips were stained red, tinged from the lipstick she had applied hours before. Wide-rimmed glasses framed her eyes and her hair was haphazardly piled on top of her head, stray pieces falling around her face. She had ditched the crop top and tight jeans for a t-shirt and baggy sweatpants. While there wasn’t anything particularly compelling about her appearance, her eyes were bright and alive.
Before she made her way out the door, Donnie shouted out to her, “Do you believe in ghosts?”
She turned and locked eyes with him, “What kind of question is that? Of course.” “Ha! Hear that Jack? She said of course,” Donnie said satisfactorily, earning an eyeroll from Jack.
“Why, you don’t?” The girl asked, leaning against their doorframe. Jack looked up from his phone. “No, I don’t—Sorry what’s your name?”
“Lucy.”
“I don’t, Lucy. I’m gonna need proof before I can say I believe in ghosts. I’m not the type of person that just puts faith into something I’ve never seen.”
Lucy crossed her arms over her chest, “You were the kid that told the other kids Santa isn’t real, weren’t you?”
Donnie gripped the carpet as he roared in laughter, eyes squeezed shut.
Jack threw one of his pillows at Donnie, who responded with a satisfying “oomph.” “I’m gonna tell you a story, then. And we’ll see if you’re still a stick in the mud,” Lucy
said, walking over to the bean bag chair, squeakily settling into it, before continuing “It was back home, over the summer…”
…
“I think the most ironic thing about it all was that Lucy is the most passionate I have ever and probably will ever meet, yet she’s the one that was so unsure of herself at the beginning.”
…
Ever since the night of ghost stories, Lucy practically became Jack and Donnie’s third roommate. Lucy seemed to be spending more and more time in their room-whether they were there or not. She had gotten used to their quirks, like how she’d hardly seen Jack’s right eye since it was always behind the lens of his camera, or how everything seemed to be a drumkit to Donnie, who was constantly tapping out a beat.
One night, Lucy had ventured onto their floor and into Jack and Donnie’s room to study. Both caught up in their own homework and projects, they didn’t notice Lucy standing in their doorway until she swung her backpack off her shoulders and dropped it onto the ground.
“I can’t focus in my room.”
“And you can in ours?” Jack retorted, writing down notes in the notebook in front of him before going back to staring at his computer screen.
“Our room is a plethora of distracting things. How could you possibly be able to focus in here?” Donnie added, glancing up at her.
“I don’t know, I guess I’m just comfortable here,” Lucy said, plopping down on their futon as if to prove her point.
Jack shrugged at Donnie before going back to editing the photos he had taken the week before for his Intro to Photography class.
Silence filled the room, something that was out of the ordinary for them. Pencils posing as drumsticks, all that could be heard was Donnie quietly tapping on his textbook.
That was something Jack had quickly noticed about his roommate-he always had to be doing something; he couldn’t sit still, which usually resulted in him drumming on whatever was closest to him or tapping his foot. His friends were actually all musically-oriented, it seemed. Lucy, though she would never accept it, had one of the best voices he had ever heard. They would be listening to music in his and Donnie’s room, Lucy singing along loud enough to be heard, but quiet enough to not draw attention to herself. It wasn’t until Donnie muted the music and Lucy sang out, before turning a bright shade of red, that they realized how self-conscious Lucy was.
Just as they hadn’t noticed her insecurity, Lucy had never noticed Donnie’s by this tick before. However, now that she was stressfully studying for a test, she didn’t seem to appreciate the pencil-made beat that much.
Her annoyance started off small. Lucy sighed, glancing over at Donnie mindlessly tapping before looking back down at her textbook.
But like the drumming, her annoyance crashed in a crescendo-slamming her textbook shut before shouting at an oblivious Donnie “Can you please stop tapping?!”
Jack looked up sharply, hearing Lucy’s outburst over the music playing in his earphones.
He took them out, gearing up for an entertaining argument.
Donnie looked up from his homework, pencil frozen mere centimeters above his book, “Was that bothering you?”
“Oh, not at all!” Lucy said snidely, “I just love listening to bad beats when I’m trying to study for the hardest test of my life.”
“That was a good beat!” Donnie argued.
“What was it supposed to be?” Jack asked in amusement.
“‘Eye of the Tiger.’”
“That sounded nothing like ‘Eye of the Tiger,’” Lucy deadpanned.
“You sound nothing like ‘Eye of the Tiger,’” Donnie retorted lamely. Lucy snorted, rolling her eyes. “Yes, because that makes so much sense.”
“I doubt you could sing it any better, Miss American Idol,” Donnie challenged.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lucy said shyly, looking down at her lap. Donnie scoffed, “Oh, please. I’ve heard you sing more than I’ve heard myself sing, and I’ve only known you for two months.”
“Okay, guys hold on a second,” Jack called out from his desk. “Let me get this straight,” Donnie and Lucy looked at him, “Donnie, you’re challenging Lucy to a sing-off?”
Donnie grinned, “That I am, Jack. Your singing skills versus my drumming, Jack’s the judge,” he said, turning to look at Lucy.
“Fine,” she huffed.
As Lucy started to sing, Jack jumped up from his desk and ran over to his camera equipment, quickly flicking his camera on to record video. There was something magical about Lucy when she sang, everyone around had to stop and listen. Maybe that’s why two guys from across the hall, Oliver and Jude, stopped and listened from the doorway before bursting into applause.
“So, who won?” Lucy blushed, glancing away from the two strangers whooping in the doorway.
Before Jack could choose a winner, Donnie said “There’s no competition. You won because holy shit, you can sing.”
Jack grinned, having captured the entire interaction on camera.
Lucy smiled, before looking into the lens. “Well, next time you’re mean we’ll have this video to fall back on.”
From then on, Sunday nights were for music.
…
“Was there any drama in the band at all?”
“Drama? Not really.”
“Yeah, we’re a pretty non-dramatic group.”
“Okay then, any rough patches?”
Lucy’s eyes narrowed, “You’re thinking of something specific, aren’t you?” Donnie sighed. “Do we really have to bring this up?” “Do you know what he’s hinting a- oh.”
“There was only one rough patch -”
“During junior year…”
…
It was at the point in winter break that Jack was so anxious to get back to school and see his friends that he was going to go insane if he didn’t leave soon. Home was different when you returned from school for break. The first week or so was nice-the food was significantly better and the shower was more spacious. Jack got to see his dog, but then Christmas came and went, grades were submitted, and winter break started to lose its luster.
He was going a bit stir crazy, if we’re being honest. College had caused strain on the fizzling friendships from high school. Sure, he’d gotten dinner with some of his “friends,” but didn’t necessarily want to spend more time with them let alone go out of his way to sit at their house and watch Netflix and scroll on his phone, not when he could do the same thing at home by himself. He missed his friends from college-the friends he had made on his own, not the ones he had been stuck with growing up.
While Jack was practically itching to get back on campus, he was worried about how the semester was going to go. Donnie was studying abroad for the semester which meant he was going to be roommate-less.
When Donnie had first decided he wanted to study abroad, he figured his parents would be the ones he would have to reassure, not his friends. Yet it seemed like he was telling them every other day that things were going to be fine. It was starting to get on his nerves a bit.
“Yes, I’ll be okay. It’s only for three months. The band will be okay.”
The band was picking up in ways that none of them had imagined. More and more people were starting to notice them, and the comfortable idea that the band was just a pastime seemed to be fading away. Oliver suggested they put on more concerts, even tour.
“We could campus hop. Play small gigs in our friends’s college towns. Our demographic is people like us, anyways. So why not start local and spread out? Maybe something will catch on.”
So that was the plan. once the ground started to thaw a bit, they were going to travel around the state picking up gigs wherever they could.
Donnie was fully supportive of the idea, but there was one catch—he was going to be abroad when all of this was starting.
“I don’t get why you can’t just not go abroad!” Lucy had exclaimed, growing more and more frustrated the closer Donnie’s flight became.
“For the thousandth time, this is something I’ve wanted to do since before I even knew you guys. I’m going to do it. I’m sorry.” Donnie would tell her, but it wouldn’t stick.
“Do you even care about the band at all?” She tested, feeling as if she was the only one who cared most of the time.
“You know I do.” He would remind her that it was his idea they start a band in the first place.
“I don’t understand how you could be so selfish. This is OUR dream.”
“Yeah, well travelling abroad has been a dream of mine for longer than being in this band has.” Donnie was getting tired of the recurring conversation, nothing would change. He was still going abroad, and Lucy still wasn’t going to agree with him.
“If you stuck around and we made it, we would get to travel the world.”
“I’m not going to put everything on hold based on the slight hope that everything works out how we want it to when this is guaranteed.”
“So, you don’t believe in us?”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
The arguments came and went all throughout the year. Lucy wasn’t even speaking to him at the point of his departure, except for the text before his flight that said: “I hope you have fun on your trip.” The falseness of the message made him feel worse than not speaking at all would have.
…
“But we’re okay now!” Donnie said quickly.
“Better than ever, to be honest.”
…
The thought of making a documentary about his friends hadn’t crossed Jack’s mind until their last semester of college. He and Donnie were laying out in the middle of the quad one night, as normal people do, staring up at the stars and feeling the cold dew soaking into their clothes, when Donnie said: “I’ve always believed in two things: fate and the power of music.”
It was a phrase that stuck in Jack’s head for weeks afterwards. His professors were always telling him that someone’s work is better quality when they’re working with something that inspires them, and nothing inspired Jack more than his friends and how they were pursuing their far-fetched hopes and out-of-reach dreams.
At that point, it only seemed natural to make a documentary about them.
…
“My name is Lucy, and I’m lead vocals.”
“Donnie, drums.”
“Oliver, I play guitar.”
“Jude, and I’m the bassist.”
The camera was shakily lifted off of the tripod and turned around. Jack’s face filled the frame, eyes lit up with excitement, a small grin tugging at his lips.
“Hi, my name is Jack and these are my friends: Onyx and the Urchins.” He hesitated, before reaching his hand past the lens and, with a click, the screen went black.
Rendering COMPLETE.