Memories...

fiction

Digital Recording of Zoom Capstone Presentation
Xander Davies Class of 2020

Xander's view is of many small windows showing classmates and instructors. The chat window to the side is filled with supportive messages from classmates.

"Hello, class of 2020. This is not how I had imagined giving my capstone presentation but so much of this year hasn't been what I imagined. I know you are all with me in that boat. My grandfather tells me this will build resilience. I just smile and nod. Because I think I have enough resilience and would rather have had a prom."

Xander's screen shows the small images of classmates and instructors smiling and laughing, though they are all on mute and cannot be heard. Xander smiles back at his classmates and then shakes his head.

"I can see you all laughing but I cannot hear you and you cannot hear each other. We are laughing together but not really. If that doesn't sum up the end of our senior year I don't know what could."

The images change to multiple nodding heads.

"People ask me why my focus is on visual arts, specifically digital arts. Or at least they used to before the pandemic started and everyone needed my help setting up their cameras and lighting systems. But I was not being prescient, word of the day, thank you Mr. Randolph, I am just in love with the medium.

Most of you know my family history. For those of you who don't, it's bleak. I'm not saying that for the dramatic effect, though I would if I thought it would get me a better grade. I'm saying it because that's the reaction I get when I tell people. 'That's bleak,' or 'That's dark, man' or just a far away stare and the mumbled apology.

So what does that have to do with my chosen pathway at school?

I have one memory of my father that is organic. One. And multiple therapists have told me that it's probably not a real memory, that I was too young to form a memory like that. But I know it was real. I know it happened. I will hold on to it. And yes, multiple therapists, I recommend collecting them. I hope to have enough to field my own football team by the time I graduate from college.

But along with that one organic memory, I have hours of memories that are digital. My parents had one of those hand held video cameras when I was born. They recorded everything. I know a lot of you are the same. I watched them so often that my uncle found a way to convert them to a digital format so I wouldn't wear out the tapes they were on.

Recordings of my father holding me right after I was born. Showing me to my mother, beaming with pride. 'Look what we did!' He actually said that, like I was a piece of art they created together. There is one of him holding me in a rocking chair listing all of the things we were going to do together. Apparently, I was going to play every sport, star in every play, play every instrument and he was going to be there for all of it. My mother teased him telling him there wouldn't be time for all of that."

Here the multiple windows all saw Xander pause and look up at the ceiling for a moment collecting himself.

"...there wouldn't be time for all of that. But he said all he wanted was to make sure I knew that no matter what I did he'd be supportive. He didn't want me to think I only had one path. I didn't have to follow his; jock, class president, enlist in the military. He would be proud no matter what. I'm glad he did it. I don't have the overwhelming sense of having to do things a certain way to make sure my father would have been proud. I know he would have been proud no matter what.

When I was six months old he shipped out for a year to Afghanistan. This is where my one organic memory comes from. I was a year and half old, still in the crib but the side was lowered so I could climb in and out without breaking my neck. One night I heard my mother talking to someone in the hallway. I could hear her saying that I might not know who he was and might get scared if he woke me up. I can remember hearing him say he just wanted to see me, and he stepped into the doorway. The hallway light was on behind him so he was just a shadow. But when I saw him, I knew who it was and said, 'Daddy?' He ran in to pick me up. That's all of the memory I have. The overheard conversation in the hallway, the shadow of him, then getting picked up. And remembering he smelled terrible. Diesel fuel, I discovered later.

If that was the only memory I had of him I would not remember what he looked like. And I would think he smelled bad."

More images of laughing faces.

"He had been home for six months when he was killed on a training mission before shipping back out to Iraq. My mother was left a young widow with a two year old, and a collection of recordings that were the only way her son was ever going to see and know his father.

So now you think you know why I'm so attracted to digital recordings. But that's not the actual reason.

After my father died my mother put away the camera. She was too busy to record all of the little details of our lives. She was working, and finishing her degree, and taking care of me, all while grieving her husband, my father, who I didn't really understand wasn't coming back this time. I would look for him at night. Sure that one day he would show up as a shadow in my doorway. It was a lot for her to manage.

So the recordings stopped.

When my mother was killed in a car accident when I was 9 I had more organic memories of her, but the digital ones weren't there. When I was 13 I realized that I couldn't really remember what she looked like before she died. My image of her was from when I was 2. From watching those recordings over and over and over again."

A few of the boxes on Xander's screen were now graphic silhouettes as cameras were switched off of people who didn't want to be seen crying on camera. The chat window was still filled with supportive messages and a few "you're right, that's bleak" notes.

"So that's why I chose the pathway I did. I want to create art that people can connect with and I because of my 'that's bleak' history, visual arts, digital arts, film and editing are the way that speaks to me the loudest. I hope that over my four years here some of the things I've learned will give me a head start when I begin college this fall. But more than that I hope that some of the things I've made in class, things many of you were forced to watch and critique, or act in, are part of your good memories of school.

And I hope you know that no matter what paths you all choose to follow after we leave here..."

Here Xander's face left their screen and was replaced by a young man holding an infant,

"...I'll be proud no matter what."