Things That Never Happen

Everything was in its place. Including myself, which was settled in the middle of the couch surrounded by a bag of chips, a soda, and my macbook. That was all that I needed. Well, that and for the damned internet browser to open so I could go to twitch.tv/captainsparklez for the livestream.

I was excited. Of course, I was always enthusiastic when he streamed in general, but this one in particular was different - this was an Extra Life charity event. Besides the obvious extended content time I was being presented with, there were other bonuses as well. In charity livestreams he often auctioned and or sold things, of which I would either be enthusiastic about or disappointed depending on if I won or not. And of course I had received nothing throughout the course of the very few and far between charity promoting streams that he had participated in.

“Come on load,” I muttered as I settled my mac on my lap anxiously. I watched the backwards circling icon on the window tab in anticipation, willing it to turn forward. My apartment building’s connection was far from good, but it was at least better than nothing. Finally the page loaded and I was met with a blue backgrounded CaptainSparklez logo along with an offline status. I glanced at the clock. 1:57. It started in three minutes. Or, it was supposed to.

The chat was blinding as thousands of people openly shared their thoughts and worries about the broadcast, as well as random things contributing to their lives that no one else was interested in. I skimmed through the words briefly, catching a few, “Where’s Jordan?”, and “Is it going to start soon?” I swore, people were so impatient.

In my personal opinion Jordan already did enough for us. Uploading two to three videos a day? Over the top. Striving to stream multiple hours a week? Almost too much. Actually it really was too much. But he seemed happy with it, so I was content.  

At that moment a dark grey camera icon appeared in the twitch.tv chat, and my attention snapped to it. The user CaptainSparklez was listed after the image. “Setting up guys, one minute left!” Impossibly, more people seemed to trickle in and bombard him with questions and/or “Okay Jordan! So excited!” Enthusiasm swelled in my chest as well, but I refrained from making a comment. Besides, it’s not like he would respond or anything. At least not to me. I was never fortunate enough for that kind of luck.

I tapped my fingers beside my touch pad. I couldn’t wait. But I was, for the sake of my feeling like I was helping the calmness, even though I wasn’t. Without looking I reached for my soda. Grape Faygo. It was my favorite. Too much carbonation was an automatic turn off when it came to choosing a pop, and Faygo added just a hint of it which was a perfect spark to go along with the taste.

My thoughts were interrupted as my screen flickered and the red dotted live notification appeared on the right hand corner of the screen. I instantly maximized the window. After a brief period of blackness a face flickered into focus on the left corner. The visage belonged to the one and only Jordan Maron, who was seemingly distracted for a split second as he checked the chat. He looked directly at the screen after a moment and cracked a goofy smile.

“What a dork,” I whispered to myself, smiling.

“Hey guys! Welcome to my little stream thingy that I’m doin’ for Extra Life. Should be fun and stuffs. But before I start let me check if my sound and video is good.” Glancing away from the monitor, I heard the echo of a delayed broadcast through Jordan’s end as he confirmed the quality. He nodded to himself. “Sounds great. Well okay then! Let’s get started!”

 

. . .