"A Memory Worth Savouring" by Emily De Silva

May 28, 2018. I will always remember it as the best day of my life. I was 17 years old then, soon to be turning 18, a legal adult, although I certainly didn’t feel like one.

It was warm, the sky blue with a few puffy white clouds and temperatures reading around twenty-five degrees. It felt hot standing outside for so long, but in my mind, it would be worth it. Coming to Toronto would be worth it, I told myself, more than once that day. Coming to a city that's an hour away from home—if it weren’t for the traffic—would be worth it.

Mom and I left over two hours early to be on time for this event, and I've been eager at the prospect of seeing Seán William McLoughlin—AKA JackSepticEye—for weeks. I remember swooning, bouncing up out of my chair and smiling with glee, as soon as I found out he'd finally be coming to Canada to perform his comedy live show world tour. How Did We Get Here is what it's called. I booked my ticket right away. I had no need for a VIP ticket—I didn't care about which seat I got—because being able to attend was enough, especially since tickets sold out so fast. Two days! In two days, they were all gone!

I remember asking Mom to drive me to the venue as soon as it was confirmed. I would be seeing Seán this May—at the theatre on Danforth Avenue. She agreed to drive me, and I paid a mental note to give her some money for gas and a hug for springing this on her so suddenly. I clutched my denim blue satchel tight with my purse and sketchbook inside—just in case—knowing the $20 I saved was in there waiting for her. And I waited.

The show was supposed to start at 7 PM, but an hour went by before we were finally allowed in, and after hours of waiting amongst countless other fans, impatiently tapping my aching fee, fiddling with my SepticEye Sam plushie, and singing along to Seán's songs, the line finally began to move. One fan even shouted, "Look! There he is! It's Jack!" and the whole crowd went wild. They spotted Seán in an upstairs window. I wanted to see that so bad, but I couldn't. I was too far away. Yet the excitement and anticipation stayed with me all the same. I'm so close, I thought. So close to seeing him. Really, finally seeing him, with my own eyes and not through a screen.

I followed the person in front of me, bouncing with energy on every step yet at the same time trying to contain myself. I asked a guide to help me find my seat, anxiety blown out of the waters tonight, and she pointed up to a set of stairs behind me. Upstairs, I thought.

When I got up there, another guide helped me to my seat—JJ27. I still couldn't believe coincidence there. JJ—like the first initial of my birth month—and 27—like the date of my birthday. It felt like a good omen, like this was meant to happen, like I was born to be here.

I sat down at the end of the front row in the seats of the Gods, just behind the aisle, but I knew that once the event really started nobody would be standing in my way to block the view. Eventually, a guy came up beside me, said, "Excuse me, may I get through?" I said sure and made myself small, tucked my knees in and moved satchel closer to my seat so he could squeeze through. He sat next to me! "What's your name?" he asked.

"Emily," I told him.

"I'm Noah," he said. It was dark, so I couldn't make out his face, but he had dark-ish hair and eyes to match. Possibly brown or dirty blond with brown eyes, too. "How long have you been watching Jack?"

"Oh, about a few years or so," I said.

"Nice. I've been watching for about a year." I felt like a total nerd, geeking out over a YouTuber like him—or an online entertainer, as Seán might've put it. But in the moment, I couldn't really say I cared. I was just happy to be there.

The show didn’t start until after 9 PM, and I remember feeling sorry for Mom, who I knew was waiting in some café a block or so away to pick me up. I told her it would probably take a couple hours, and those couple hours were nearly up. I didn't mean to make her wait, I thought. I didn't know it would take this long. Although, I should've guessed that Seán would take extra time talking to VIP fans. Maybe I should've booked a VIP ticket after all.

No, I told myself. You're still here. You'll still get to see him, and that alone is enough.

At the back of the stage was a screen projecting Seán’s banner art for the How Did We Get Here tour, displayed in an almost cryptic yet bubbly font in bright red, green, and blue. The ‘o’ in “How” replaced nothing more than his logo, his maskot of the channel, SepticEye Sam. Like the line outside, it seemed as if forever had passed before the screen went blank.

I was surprised to find that when the screen finally did change, it wasn't Seán that came out in person but a recording of him. It was as if I was watching him on YouTube all over again, and my heart briefly sank to the bottom of my chest.

At first, he said nothing. He didn't even begin with his intro that we all knew so well. That stereotypically Irish and overexaggerated "Top of the mornin' to ya laddies, my name is JackSepticEye!" Instead, he coughed, then went "Oh!" seated in his green and black chair in his recording room like the entertainer that he is—the entertainer without a script that is—as if he was surprised to find us here too, staring back at him—or his camera staring back at him, rather.

He joked around, asked some invisible entity off-camera where the video was and if they could get it working again, and when they said no, Jack had switched gears to try and entertain us like he always does. He cracked some jokes, held an immature drawing contest (and we all knew what the end result of that would be), and after Googleing ways to entertain a live audience, he even held direct eye contact with us, staring into his camera lens like he were trying to see into our souls. Bright blue visible to all. We laughed because it was much like the comedy we were used to; I did too. Until finally, he gave up, figuring that it wasn't working, and he said, "Okay, how about this: If you come out from behind your screens, I'll come out from behind mine."

My heart lit up like a Christmas tree, and the crowd cheered, but that roar was nothing compared to the applause that erupted when the screen went black and Seán ran out on stage. It was thunderous! And Seán was a natural, in his element. He commenced with a few opening poses, poses that he thought we would love—rockstar poses, sexy poses, and then some—and even a few in-real-life jokes. Then his tone turned serious.

"Before we begin," he said, "what I want people to do is put away the phone. Put away the cameras, the iPads, and just enjoy being here—in this moment."

I understand what he meant and I knew what he wanted, why he was asking such a thing, so despite my friend Luca's wish to "film that shit" for him, I did exactly that. I turned my phone off, switched it to silent mode, and forgot all about the need to film everything. I lied it face down on my lap with SepticEye Sam and decided then to give Seán my full attention—and full respect—because this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I never wanted to forget.

And then, Seán began.