When (he)arts Prevail

30

That following week at work, Kaylee continued to struggle with her job, wanting nothing more than to log into her App and just have fun with her photographs. However, she knew she couldn't do it, she still had deadlines to meet and work to do.

On her lunch break, though, since none of her favorite coworkers had come and had stayed home working remote, Kaylee decided to eat on her desk and work on her stuff.

She had wanted to experiment something different for a while and so she loaded a picture of Brian into the App. It was an old one of his, playing guitar at her parents' backyard, all those years ago. He looked younger, his features much softer than now. Time took a toll on everyone. Yet, he was lucky enough to age well. Kaylee got annoyed whenever she thought that she was losing her brightness and glow and he just looked better and better as the years went by. Men!

Between taking bites at her food, Kaylee slowly made some progress on Brian's picture, enhancing colors on the guitar and his hands, making blurred lines on the background, and many other details she thought made the picture cooler.

Entranced in her work, Kaylee didn't notice some worker watching behind her, until his voice cut through the silence. "Wow..." he laughed.

Kaylee's instincts made her snap her laptop shut and she turned abruptly around in her chair. The guy, which appeared very young and fresh, with shaggy bronze hair, lifted his hands in defense. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

"No, I apologize. I thought it would be my manager or something."

"What were you working on? That looked amazing."

Hesitantly, Kaylee lifted back the lid of her laptop and logged back in, showing the guy her work.

"That's awesome! What project are you in?"

"Oh, it's not really from work. It's just a project of my own."

"That's really cool. I have a friend who works in a place that does stuff like that, too. I always thought it looked awesome."

Could it be Artsy Company? Kaylee thought, but didn't have the courage to ask. "Thank you, I guess."

"If you want me to show them your things, just email me." He brought out a card and handed it to Kaylee. She stared at it for a while. "I know it's stupid," he said, his voice wavering with embarrassment. "I just— I've always wanted to do this, so I carry around my own business cards." His cheeks flushed a little as Kaylee looked up at him, making her smile. "Glenn, now, is it?"

"Yeah."

"I'm Kaylee." She stretched her hand and he gave her a light handshake. "Nice to meet you, and thank you." She motioned for the card. "I'll consider it."

"Nice. Well, have fun. I'm gonna go." He pointed to the other side of the office and ambled away. Kaylee took another look at the card, with a professional photo of Glenn and his email. With a shake of her head, thinking that life had funny ways to show her the way to go, she placed the card carefully next to her laptop and continued her work on the picture. This time, she did it with a big smile on her face and with a hopeful heart.