A strong mind that The Boy befriended was Taylor. Taylor was in one of The Boy’s classes at an early age. They grew close naturally, and even ended up playing sports together.  

From the very beginning of their friendship, The Boy always noticed that Taylor wore a bright yellow wristband. Not one made of rubber that you bend and fiddle with, but one of those paper ones that you would get at an arcade so they knew you paid to be there. Everytime the wristband got super worn down or torn up, Taylor always appeared with a brand new one. The Boy grew overly curious one day, and asked “What’s up with the yellow wristband?”

“What do you mean?” Taylor replied.

“On your wrist. What is it? And why do you always wear it?”

“It’s none of your business.” Taylor spurted out.

After an awkward pause, The Boy moved the conversation onto something else less intrusive. As he walked through his front door, The Boy still grew curious about the yellow wristband. He took it to his parents and asked “Why does Taylor always wear a yellow wristband?”

The Boy was met with shock. Taylor’s mother had passed away with a severe case of bone cancer when Taylor was younger. It turned out that yellow is the color for the cancer’s awareness. This was terrible news to The Boy, but made him look at Taylor on an even higher pedestal than he did before.

Not too long after this discovery, The Boy had Taylor over to play some Xbox and watch a movie. They really liked to play NHL, and always agreed that it was the most fun of all of the sports video games. They each picked different All-Star teams from that year and went head to head. The Boy always loved the buzz of the controller in his hands. From the big hits to the artificial clapping of the fans, the vibrations made The Boy feel as if he was one with the game, alive and buzzing. 

After a best of 7 game series, which Taylor had won in 6, The Boy brought up the topic that had been lingering on his mind.

“Hey look, I’m sorry about what happened with your mom. I had no idea.”

“Don’t apologize man, that’s not your fault. I appreciate it though.” Taylor said

“My parents said that yellow is the color to help raise awareness.” The Boy said pointing to Taylor’s wrist.

“Yeah that’s true, but that isn’t really why I wear it.”

This was unexpected for The Boy and made him rethink. Was it for someone else? Did he just like the look of it?

“Then why do you wear it?” The Boy said.

“Well it actually is for my mom, but not for cancer” Taylor started. “The way my mom saw the world was through yellow. That doesn’t really make sense, but I guess you could say it was her favorite color. Whenever spring came around we would have these picnics in a sunflower field. She would point out the bumblebees and say ‘Don’t be scared of their buzzing, they just get excited when they see yellow.’”

He started to tear up. The Boy felt bad for even saying anything. 

“Hey dude you don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to” 

“No it’s ok.” Taylor said as he wiped his eyes. “I just wear yellow to remind myself how she saw the world. This way I can still keep her with me.”

Even as weeks and months passed, and Taylor and The Boy grew closer than ever, Taylor’s story stuck with The Boy and made him reflect. Although Taylor’s mom was gone, Taylor’s heart beat on for his mother and everything she stood for.

The Boy began to wear yellow paper wristbands. 

Growing into high school, an influential aspect of The Boy’s life came with soccer. This was a sport he had grown especially to love compared to others, purely because of what it gave him. From tight friendships to unforgettable memories and valuable lessons, there really wasn’t a journey that The Boy treasured more. 

At The Boy’s school, there was a tradition to use the buzzer on the scoreboard for two seconds before every game. This didn’t go for just soccer, but every sport at the school. This unique gesture was to honor the schools original athletic director, Burt “Buzzer” Bunton, who would hit the buzzer for two seconds before every football game. After his passing, the school honored him by having a two second buzzer before every event using the scoreboard.

“I had always really wanted to try it” The Boy read aloud to Taylor from a newspaper. It was the local paper, today with a segment on Bunton’s famous buzz tradition. The paper showed an ancient interview with Bunton.

“It was never really supposed to become such a big deal” The Boy read aloud. “I sorta just felt the urge to hit the buzzer. Some of the other guys in the booth took notice, and we ended up winning that season opener 34-0. The guys joked that it was good luck, and urged me to do it again the next game, and the next, and next. I would have never truly thought the team would go undefeated that season. It could have just been a coincidence.” 

The paper had come out on the 60th anniversary of Bunton’s death, the same year as Taylor and The Boy’s senior year. The Boy had never known the whole story of the famous buzz tradition.

“Do you really buy into this ‘buzz’ story?” Taylor said.

“I mean yeah why not, It seems pretty believable” The Boy stated back.

“The school definitely just has a faulty buzzer or something and never wanted to fix it. I swear I hear that thing go off randomly during the day at school. That's why they made up this lousy story about a guy named Burt.”

Taylor loved his conspiracy theories. 

The Boy and Taylor had an eventful soccer season filled with many goals and memories with the team. That being said, they finished with a losing record and missed the playoffs, which made for a lot of quiet bus rides home.

The final game to play was Senior Night at home. In the beginning of his high school career, The Boy didn’t pay much attention to the famous Bunton ‘buzz’ before games. As he developed into the latter years The Boy started to use the buzz as a kick start to his game to lock in. The Boy stood on the pitch for Senior Night, where he realized that this would be his final ‘buzz’ ever. The thought rested in his mind throughout the game, in which he played very well. 

In the final minutes of the game, the coach put on all the seniors to spend those last minutes together on the field. The Boy realized this, and unexpectedly began to think back and reflect. He thought back to every time he took the field, to every time he came off, to scoring goals, to losing, to winning.

His neck snapped to the scoreboard, which had a pleasant 2-0 score on it in favor of the home team. The numbers counted down until there were double zeros, playing one last ringing buzz in The Boy’s ears. His eyes watered. He looked around to his teammates, including Taylor who also had tears in his eyes. They hugged, they cried, and they took as much time as they needed to walk off that field, for one last time. 

The Boy took up drumming. He always loved music and was inspired by how it made him feel. What always stood out to him in the music were the drums. The drums beat, and beat, and beat just as the boy always did. 

His father always knew how much the boy loved the beat, beat, beat of the drums. As a gift one christmas, the father bought the boy a drum set. Base, snare, hi-hat and all, the boy always messed around with the drum set. He would tap his sticks together and smash on the side of the drum. He would bang around in circles and circles. He would string rhythms together to try and make a cohesive beat. It gave the boy a high like no other.

This beat took over his life one day at a time. He found himself tapping his foot to a song in his head, or even playing with his pencils on the desk. He would beatbox to himself over his own noise.

Badum bum chhhh, Badum bum chhhh, Badum bum chhhh

A strong topic of conversation between Taylor and The Boy was always music. The Boy’s father had a lot of 80s and 90s music discs that the two would sift through. The Boy’s car still had a cd player in it, which is where the two would jam out. They always put each other onto something new and debated hot topics like if N.W.A or The Beastie Boys were the better rap group. Is Eminem a top 5 rapper? Is Beyoncé the queen of pop? Is Kanye a good guy or are you just attached to his music? The two debated it. 

The Boy saw himself in music. He saw how the beat builds. He saw how it rises into a climax, some songs having multiple. He saw how it dropped off and eventually faded away, only to repeat the song and see it all over again. He could visualize every beat, every melody, and see himself within it all. 

It wasn’t easy to put into words to Taylor, but he understood what The Boy was saying. Taylor loved when The Boy used his drums. It was someone that could see The Boy in his element. He was talented and it made sense to Taylor why he was talented when he watched The Boy play. 

The Boy stepped into his final beat and finished with a crescendo.

Taylor wanted to take a step back for a final time with The Boy and reflect.

“Do you remember going to the sunflower fields?” Taylor asked.

“How could I not?” The Boy responded

At a younger time, The Boy and Taylor would make frequent trips to the sunflower fields that Taylor’s mom used to bring him too. The Boy had offered the idea once and Taylor didn’t refuse. They tried to go right as the sun was setting to get the best possible view of the sky. Most of the time it was an opportunity to get to listen to a new cd that The Boy found from his father’s collection. They both loved it so much that it became an often trip. 

It made for great pictures. People always asked where they took them, but the two never told. 

“Your dad always had the best music taste” Taylor said weakly. 

The Boy pushed back the hospital bracelet to reveal the wrinkled, bright yellow, paper wristband. A tear streamed down The Boy’s face, dropping on Taylor’s hand. 

The heart monitor began to run.

Beep.. Beep.. Beep..

Faster

BeepBeepBeepBeep

Into an end.