It was too much. It was all far too much. She could not hear over the sound of the drums, the screaming, the echoing rowdy fans, and the piercing headache. The gym was packed as the ladies spiked the ball over the net. Janine lost sight of the ball on the screen in front of her, so she looked up over the screen to see the real game in front of her. She found and followed the ball with her eyes, then returned her focus to the screen in front of her.
She looked over to her coworker beside her. The headphones with the attached microphone on his head as he provided the play by play to their virtual audience was drowned out by the constant noise around her. She could not hear him even though she knew he was being heard by the audience tuning in on the livestream she was producing. Her vision clouded over from how loud the noise surrounding her was.
She groped beneath the table for her bag. She felt the handles and pulled the bag up into her lap. She kept her eyes on the screen in front of her as she felt around in the bag until her hands grasped what she was feeling for. She pulled her own set of headphones free and dropped the bag back below the table. She flipped the power switch on and placed the headphones over her ears. The noise around her was muffled slightly.
She pulled out her phone, opened her music app, and hit shuffle on the open playlist. The music she blared directly into her ears drowned out the storm surrounding, providing a wave of peace to flow through her. She could breathe and solely feel the music she chose to hear rather than the chaos that had been blinding her through her other senses. She could still faintly hear the ruckus on the other side of her headphones but paid it little mind. She focused back on the screen in front of her and her vision was clear once more.
She felt a tap on her shoulder and nodded in return. She muted her coworker and ran the advertisement as the quick break in the game occurred. The advertisement ended and she looked back at her coworker who nodded back at her. She unmuted him and sent him a thumbs up. He began speaking into his microphone once more, silenced to her ears by the music blaring from her own headphones. She monitored her screen and focused on her breathing.
The storm would pass. It always did. When she could stand it, she would. Right now, was not one of those times so she was falling back on her protective measures. Each of her coworkers knew what to do when this occurred and what to look for to identify when the storm was too much. She was grateful they did this and was grateful that she had remembered to bring her headphones to the game.