Beyond Flames

Once outside, Daniel let out a sigh of content. They had been recording and writing the entire day, tweaking excisting songs and they even came up with an entirely new one. Never had he been any more proud of what Beyond Flames, their band, had accomplished. From small, free gigs in Las Vegas to an actual recording studio in New York City, they had come from far. They had grown too.

The band had started when Daniel and Emeka had just turned fifteen, and finally found themselves good in playing their instruments. Emeka had worked extremely hard since he was eleven, but at age fifteen he finally mastered all sorts of guitars. Daniel on the other hand, was a natural. He just sat down, played and practised, and soon he played almost like a pro. He did had to work on his singing voice, though, as his voice broke all the time at that age. He and Emeka had always dreamed of forming a band. They would sit and wonder for hours what kind of band they would be, making up ridiculous names and ponder about how it would be to be famous.

When Seden had joined their school, all guys were, of course, excited. With her foreign heritage and exciting accent, she was the talk of the school for weeks. But one time, during music class, which Emeka and Daniel were both failing at the time, they heard her play guitar. And they had fallen in love.

Emeka immediately asked her for tutoring, which offer she turned down as she had heard him play in class and thought he was utter crap. He managed to convince her, though, and that was the story of how they got to know Seden, and how Emeka learned to play guitar. Nowadays, he plays it as natural as she does, but it had taken hours and blood and even a couple of tears.

When they asked her to be in their band, she turned down too. She just didn’t see it happening, until she saw Daniel play and sing once. Emeka had convinced her to come to practice just one time, because they were friends right? he had said, and she let herself be persuaded. Emeka had picked up the banged up guitar, Daniel grabbed the small portable keyboard that must have been ages old, and set in the tones. They played in good harmony for a while, and then Daniel strung out soft notes, Emeka backing him up.

Daniels voice had finally stopped breaking a couple of months ago, and after he had mastered the art that was singing, it was like he couldn’t stop doing it. He sang everywhere, in the shower, at the mall, in the toilet, it didn’t matter. It helped that he was an only child, so he had no sibling that would tell him to shut up, and his parents almost always worked late. It was a good schedule they had worked out. At day, Daniel would be at school, come home, make homework and then would practise singing or keyboard. At night, he would have dinner with his parents and brother, tell them how band practise went and eventually went to bed. He was fine with it.

But as Daniel strung out the last note, Seden had tears in her eyes and couldn’t stop nodding, yes, yes, yes I’ll be in your band, she had said, making two teenage boys very happy. They had flung their arms around her, so excited to finally see their dream being realised.

Soon, they had found a guy from school who had offered to be their drummer after they had played in the local cafe once. He didn’t last long. He was always late or didn’t bother showing up, and when he did, he always made up excuses. Since he wasn’t even that good, they made the right decision and kicked him out. Afterwards, they realised he might have only signed up because he might have had a crush on Seden. He would not be the first, nor the last.

As drummers came and went, Buying Paper, as their name had been back then, longed for a drummer that would stay and meet up to their standards. They had become a bit famous in the many cafés they had played gigs at, so when they organised an audition, there were quite a few turnups. The girl with the then bright green hair had caught their eye immediately, though, by the way she was just casually leaning against the wall popping her pink bubble gum in her mouth. She chewed, and blew a perfect bubble before deflating it, and started chewing again. When it was her turn to audition, she walked to the drums, tweaked and turned her chair a bit and picked up the drum sticks. Then she started playing the coolest drum solo like it was a piece of cake, awing everyone in the room. They called off the auditions after that, hiring her on the spot.

The first thing Sarah said to us was: your bandname sucks, whilst casually chewing her bright pink gum. Then we did a group hug.

We didn’t change our name until a year after.

“Let’s hit a bar to celebrate.” Seden said. She was the outgoing one of us, the one with the suggestions and friends outside of the band, even though we were still her best friends. Sarah just nodded, flipping her bright purple hair over her shoulder and sagging her torn up backpack on her back. It was dark out, the street lights all ignited and spreading a yellow glow over the pavement. Emeka nodded too, still smiling a bit from the great day we’d had. His bright white teeth really stood out in the dark, making me slightly jealous. “Okay.” I said, pulling out my phone to look up nearby bars. Seden pulled it out of my hand immediately. I let out a grunt as she slid it in her pocket and swung her arms over me and Sarah, whilst trying to pull Emeka in as well with her hand. “We’re in New York City! There are bars everywhere, come on!” She chirped, and dragged us along the sidewalk to the brightly lit street filled with flashy yellow taxis zigzagging through traffic. We let her pull us to a nice looking bar, and then unhooked ourselves from the crazy Arabic girl. She danced inside, immediately hooking us up with drinks we didn’t ask for and sat us down.

 She lifted the drink with her usual chirpiness, and said: “To Beyond Flames!” before downing it in one go, motioning for us to do the same. Then she started coughing. “Haven’t done this in a while guys, don’t judge.” She managed to splutter out, making us all laugh. We downed our drinks too, although not as quickly as Seden had done, and just started chattering away.

An hour and a half later Seden was pissed drunk. “Beware, New York Citiers, for Beyond Flames!” She slurred whilst standing on one of the bar tables, making the entire bar erupt in laughter. Then she started to sing off key so loud we could almost hear the glass around us shatter, making everyone laugh even more. Emeka walked up to her and lifted her off the table, trying to avoid her defensive kicks against certain areas.

“I think you have had enough.” He told her, chuckling in the deep baritone voice that was Emeka. He swung her over his shoulder and walked outside, leaving me and Sarah to pay for Sedens’ a couple too many shots. We were slightly tipsy too, with the exception of Emeka who was a die hard sober, and found the scene of Emeka carrying the drunken wildcat that was Seden over the street hilarious. Sarah and I bumping into each other, which made us laugh harder.

We felt amazing, even though the hangover tomorrow wouldn’t feel quite as good as we felt now.

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dedicated to the author of That I Would Be Good , which is a must-read story (: