By then I thought I'd seen it all, thought I'd done it all-- not everything this world had to offer, sure, but certainly all the world had for me. Were I to somehow transpose the same hour between two different days the only change might be the weather. You do something long enough and time melts and fades, the days on the calendar just a sort of courtesy.
Doing this, you tend not to think much about tomorrow. It may never come for you, but you could at least try to make it come for someone else. For a while I was okay with that. I thought, perhaps naively, that I was helping. You know, fighting for some greater cause. These things were here because of us, right? Then it's our responsibility to fix what we caused. That's what we're taught growing up.
But as the days turned to weeks, turned to months, turned to years, I think it wore on me. People maimed, their family killed, everyone knows of at least one person who lost something to them. Rarely were those people a direct cause, but often collateral or just simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time-- a fatal coincidence.
For most people, demand for work is a good thing. But for me?
Were we even making a difference?
I still tried to put on a smile, to help those around me. Deep down I hoped that my contributions really did mean something and that their tomorrows might be just a little bit better. I tried to feed that last remaining spark as the days passed, that little bit keeping me going. From holding the door open for another to reaching someone before one of those things caught up with them, I took what I could get. After all, not every job had the worst possible outcome.
I'd see children outside playing, ignorant of what may come, and find myself envying them. While they lived in the moment, I braced for their futures. In a way, I guess I felt fortunate being alone, having seen what so many have gone through. Should something happen to me, it would stop there.
Right?
---
Full-size: https://www.patreon.com/posts/93127707
Please support my work; none of my non-commission work is possible otherwise. If you'd like to support monthly you'll get very early access to full-size images, WIPs, and even some alternate versions. I've been having a difficult time lately so it would really help me out.
https://www.patreon.com/ratte
https://ko-fi.com/ratte
Doing this, you tend not to think much about tomorrow. It may never come for you, but you could at least try to make it come for someone else. For a while I was okay with that. I thought, perhaps naively, that I was helping. You know, fighting for some greater cause. These things were here because of us, right? Then it's our responsibility to fix what we caused. That's what we're taught growing up.
But as the days turned to weeks, turned to months, turned to years, I think it wore on me. People maimed, their family killed, everyone knows of at least one person who lost something to them. Rarely were those people a direct cause, but often collateral or just simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time-- a fatal coincidence.
For most people, demand for work is a good thing. But for me?
Were we even making a difference?
I still tried to put on a smile, to help those around me. Deep down I hoped that my contributions really did mean something and that their tomorrows might be just a little bit better. I tried to feed that last remaining spark as the days passed, that little bit keeping me going. From holding the door open for another to reaching someone before one of those things caught up with them, I took what I could get. After all, not every job had the worst possible outcome.
I'd see children outside playing, ignorant of what may come, and find myself envying them. While they lived in the moment, I braced for their futures. In a way, I guess I felt fortunate being alone, having seen what so many have gone through. Should something happen to me, it would stop there.
Right?
---
Full-size: https://www.patreon.com/posts/93127707
Please support my work; none of my non-commission work is possible otherwise. If you'd like to support monthly you'll get very early access to full-size images, WIPs, and even some alternate versions. I've been having a difficult time lately so it would really help me out.
https://www.patreon.com/ratte
https://ko-fi.com/ratte
Category Artwork (Digital) / All
Species Feline (Other)
Gender Male
Size 926 x 1280px
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