Ash

After the last server left for the night, Ash hummed away the hours to the upbeat music plugged into his ears. Two hours and thirty-six minutes, to be exact.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead, then draped his apron over the handle of a cart loaded with six empty bins.

Everyone ignored him. Unless they were angry or wanted something. 

He hated that he couldn’t even ask for a day off or a raise without angering the manager. The restaurant was a country where his currency was unusable.

Ash hated that they didn’t return his greetings. That they never thanked him. Not a day passed where he wouldn’t wonder why this was happening to him. 

He was labeled as a loser as soon as he started. Maybe it was the way he was dressed or the way that he spoke; he didn’t really know since they insulted him from head to toe. Skinny. Small. Thin. An easy target who wouldn’t fight back. Sure, he wasn’t that good at his job at the beginning, and he didn’t improve very much, but  still, he did try his best.

Sebastian told him to fight back, but Ash didn’t have it in him. He fought back once, at home, years ago, and it only made things worse. The hits became harder, the insults harsher, and the punishments more frequent.

Why am I thinking about this?

But he should be thankful that he had a job at all, thankful that his co-workers tolerated him. He cursed himself for being so useless and incapable. Ash had this conversation with himself hundreds, if not thousands, of times throughout his life. 

It was best to keep his worthless head down and hope they’ll accept him one day.

A throbbing sensation reminded him that he had to figure out how to care for his hand. He glanced around the room for something to cover the laceration, and a white dress shirt caught his eye.

His features softened when he picked up the clean shirt. 

That’s right. I need to return his shirt. And get my notebook back.

Did AJ look into his notebook? Actually, it didn’t matter if he did; AJ probably regretted helping him at all, and they would never see each other again after he returned the shirt.

It was embarrassing for him to leaf through it; his earlier works were terrible. Not that his current work was amazing or anything, but he was proud of it.

Real-life was dull and lifeless; there was nothing that he could do about that. 

But a blank page? 

Beautiful things poured out of him as if his heart overflowed with ink. At first, it was a trickle, then a stream, and now it was a river born from his love for life.

There was a need to fill the empty space, to build his own beautiful world. Drawings of almost everything under the sun and above it filled the pages of his book. Pebbles, trees, insects, animals, cars, street lamps, clouds, almost anything really.

The notebook and pen were all that he needed. 

Things like video games, gardening, and cooking sounded really fun, but he couldn't afford them after paying his bills. Even the laundromat was too expensive for him. It was 12 quarters to wash and another 12 to dry! That’s 24 quarters that he would have to spend weekly. 

His apartment didn’t have a washing machine, so he hand-washed the shirt when he showered earlier. Ash stretched the shirt at the ceiling and squinted at the fluorescent light passing through the fabric. 

After a quick nod and smile, he delicately folded the shirt before draping it over his left forearm.

The full moon illuminated the whole strip when he looked outside. Ash put on his second-favorite jacket and headed to the Tipping Point.

~

As promised, here was my first version of the pair. We were still working on the character designs at the time.  I drew it for the February Tapas Artboard !