MonkyingAround's The Script OneShot Contest

Round 6: Kindness

The big day is creepy nearer and nearer as the minutes, hours, days, and weeks fly past at the blink of an eye. June 20th of this year, 2015, the lads and I play Croke Park in Dublin. Going to be a big show, surely. The venue typically seats around the ballpark range of 82,000 and the day the tickets went on sale the standing seats sold out in an hour and a half then three hours later they were all reportedly sold. This is by-far the largest gig that The Script will be playing to date. Yeah, festivals ring in crowds quite large in size, but the biggest number I've seen was just over 60,000. Festivals also have a large variety of different artists performing all throughout the day. However, at Croke it's just going to be Pharrell Williams opening and The Script headlining. 82,000, that's a lot of people, especially taking into consideration that when we first started as a band we played to less than 100 people, namely our little gig at The Sugar Club in Dublin where we played to 62 people, most of which we had paid to come see us play.

Most artists would probably be quite nervous as the day of their largest concert ebbed closer and closer because it's unlike anything they'd ever done before. I too have had little moments of nervousness, playing up situations with worst case scenarios. What if nobody shows up and everybody got tickets just to prank us into thinking that we were playing a sold-out show of that size, but all I need todo to disprove this theory is check my Twitter and see the floods of tweeters tweeting about how excited they're getting about the show. There are many things that could go wrong, but all you can do is hope and reassure yourself that everything will run smoothly.

"Danny, you'll never guess what just happened!" I heard Sylvia squeal in excitement from a distance away.

"Um, you won the lottery?" I questioned, obviously joking because I know she doesn't do lottery tickets. She believes herself to have terrible luck so she doesn't even bother with them.

"No, silly," she replied. "You know that I don't do tickets."

"What wonderful thing just happened to you?" I posed, walking over to her then taking her hands into my own.

"I've been offered the opportunity to go to America for a two months stint to help construct houses for the less fortunate," Sylvia answered. "All of the travel expenses will be paid-in-full. Flight, hotel, food, everything. All I need to do is go and help."

She may not seem like this type of girl, but Sylvia McKinley does indeed volunteer for construction jobs. She's more in the interior decoration area but she's not afraid to pick up a hammer and put in some nails to help the cause. She's all about charity work and giving back and helping out the less fortunate, to the point where it seems that almost everything she does helps someone else. She always puts others before herself and not many people I've met lately carry that trait anymore.

"I've always wanted to go to America but whenever I've been given the chance I've always turned it down because I'd need to get a ton of different vaccinations and I absolutely hated needles, but when you secretly took me to the blood drive what seems like forever ago to get me past my fear. It made me realize that it isn't as bad as I had it painted out to be and that the few pricks of it would pay off for what would come later," she continued to explain. "The only thing though is that I'm not sure of it, at least for the time frame they're giving me."

"Why's that?" I asked, concerned. "It's something that you've always wanted to do."

"I don't think I'll be able to return to see you play Croke Park," she informed.

"Oh," I muttered inaudibly to myself, under my breath.

"I've always wanted to do this, but Croke is your biggest gig yet and I want to be there to support you, and despite going to help build houses for others, I would feel selfish for not being here for you," she thought out loud. "I think I'm going to decline the offer. Thanks but no thanks."

"Why would you do that?" I inquired. "It's something that you've always wanted to do and might never get the chance to do it again."

"But I also might not get the chance to see you play that large of a gig again," she returned. "As a girlfriend it's my job to support you and I wouldn't be doing that if I was abroad."

"Sylvia, you have always supported me with my career, but it seems to me that I never support you with your decisions, because you always insist on doing what's best for me," I began to speak. "You're saying that it would be selfish of you to leave, but it would be selfish of me to keep you here. I get the privilege of traveling for my job and I know that you dream of traveling to different places and you've finally gotten the chance to. I don't want to be the reason why you stay back. No matter how much I'd love to have you stay and see us perform, I know this is something that you've always wanted, and I'm not going to let you stay behind. For everything you've done to support me, it's about time I do something for you. Now, go call that guy back and tell him you're going."
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So, I got this idea at like 10:30 last night and scribbled some stuff down on paper so I could remember it well enough to write today. I hope kindness came across in this and just for the record, I'm going to say that Danny was being kind and doing an act of generosity but telling Sylvia to go to America no matter how much he wanted to her see him play a Croke with the lads.

Now just a couple questions. One, has anybody else seen the video of the lads playing We Cry at the Sugar Club so many years ago? I saw the video on Pinterest a couple years ago and was just curious. You can find it on YouTube if you're interested.

Second, is it wrong that I feel that I'll be the next one gone from this contest?