A quiet pitter-patter rained on the streets below. Lana’s bed shifted as she moved around her bed, trying to find a better position to sleep in. Try as she might, she couldn’t get in a comfortable position, so she gave up, and just stayed still. The chilly air made it hard for her to sleep, and it was freezing since she had to wash her only blanket. The quarantine made sure that she would get her blanket soiled faster than she usually did. As she struggled to rest, she started to think of a few ways to sleep. Counting sheep never worked for her, and she doubted that she still had fresh milk lying around somewhere. Maybe stimulating her mind was the way to get her sleepy enough.

Lana slowly crawled out of bed, stood up, and looked at the clock hanging on the other side of the wall. It was only 11:30, two hours since she had crawled into bed. She looked around her apartment, looking for where she may have put her slippers. She always forgot where she put it before she slept. She spotted it near her refrigerator. Taking the chance to check the ref, she was disappointed to find the same water containers and vegetables that were usually there. What was she expecting? She was surviving off online grocery delivery, and she didn’t have the money to get much anyway.

Whistling the first few notes of Claire de Lune, Lana walked across the room to the desk she had that was under her window. She listened to the rain for a brief moment and looked out of the window. Just an empty street. She used to want a quiet street at night, but in hindsight, that noise helped her mind focus on sleeping. With just the rain, her mind was just annoyed. She sat down on her chair and turned on the lamp beside her.

She looked at the tools of her trade. Pencils, pens, markers, erasers, and canvases were scattered on the desk. The quarantine had choked her artistic passion, making her drawings in her opinion, dull and disorganized. Not that the commissioners thought of it like that. There was nothing nice to draw in her apartment and try as hard as she might, she couldn’t get any inspiration on the internet. A friend had suggested Lana ask for inspiration from other people or even ask for commissions. But while she was able to make some money with that, it felt more like a job to her right now. And as someone who was just laid off, she was too frustrated to consider anything as a job. Thus, she only accepted commissions she considered easy.

Her career as an illustrator for a magazine had come to an abrupt end when the magazine company decided to lay off a few of the workforce. This had been so sudden. Lana would have thought more people would subscribe to magazines since they couldn’t go out and buy their own, but apparently, this was not the case for her company. With the sudden layoff, Lana found herself without a good source of income. And whenever she tried, she got too angry about her situation anyway.

Lana shook her head, breaking her trail of thoughts. She wanted to sleep, not stay awake. Thinking about that would only keep her thinking of what could have been. She decided to start by just drawing a few shapes that would let her trace a body, and maybe get some inspiration. She picked up a pencil and started to draw.

Sounds of furious drawing stopped a few minutes later when her phone made a sound. Lana looked at it, lying at the foot of the bed. She contemplated getting it, and ultimately decided to get it. As she checked her phone and sat down again, she hit her elbow against her desk. Squirming, she grabbed her arm and started to calm down. The tension she had on her arms softened, and she started to calm down. She looked at her phone to see what had triggered a notification.

"A foreigner in my community is asking if they can commission some art. Would like to know if you're up to it?" 

The message was from Robin, a former coworker, and a layout artist. Lana was quite surprised by the message. Sure she had taken commissions, but that was for people or objects in a specific layout. She didn't consider what she did as art. To her, they were just drawings that she was paid to do. She had no enthusiasm for them.

"Why'd you text me? Lol. I don't think I'm an artist, I just draw stuff." Lana texted back.

Robin: I’ve seen some of the magic you’ve done dude, I’m pretty sure you could nail this guy’s wishes.

Lana: Well if you think so, I guess it doesn’t hurt to hear what the proposal is.

Robin: Two people standing on a building, overlooking a city.

Lana: Wow, a city? I know I’m supposed to be an artist, but I don’t think I can draw an entire city.

Robin: Nah, he says that he’ll just ask you to trace a photo he took.

Lana: Eh, I dunno about tracing a photo, but let’s hypothetically say I do that. Are these men standing or sitting? Who are they?

Robin: No one in particular.

Lana: Any more specifics? And how much is he willing to pay?

Robin: He just wants a reminder of what life used to be like. 

Lana: Quite a sentimental feeling.

Robin: He’ll pay like 1,000 dollars.

Lana nearly hit her knee standing up. 1,000 dollars For one art piece? She certainly was never paid that much for one thing. Her highest commission was 50 dollars, and that was pretty high. And though she did think she was good at drawing stuff, did Robin seriously think she could do a first-time art job with her skills? She reviewed her drawing history to remember what exactly made her an illustrator. 

She started drawing at around 10 years old when there was a drizzle just like this one. The power was out, and she found reading books boring. So she just drew what was outside the window. Sure, it wasn’t good looking, but after a few hours, she managed to finish something. From there, she started drawing at least once every week, and she drew everything from lamps to maps. A family friend recommended she go for a fine arts degree. And from there, she learned a lot of techniques about how to draw and why to draw. And honestly, she didn’t like the experience, but it was enough that she got a good job at a magazine.

Lana sat down again, and thought of what to say. “4 digits?! And you think I can do this job with no experience?” she typed.

Robin: Like, I said, you do magic. You’ve done some great things in the magazine! Like, remember the picture of a crying teen you made for that reunion piece? I don’t think you’ll be able to do this, I know you will!

Lana: Thanks for the confidence. Maybe I can talk with him myself to see what else I can do?

Robin: Uh, actually nope. He doesn’t have any social media, and he doesn’t have a phone either.

Lana: How’s he gonna pay me then lol?

Robin: He still has a computer and bank account, he’s not a savage.

Lana: kk, might have been too rude. Sorry.

Robin: I’ll be the middleman.

Lana: Will you take a cut as the contact?

Robin: ... never thought of that. Is that ok?

Lana: Well, shit, didn’t think you’d say yes to that. It’s ok, guess I’ll start then.

Robin: But he hasn’t sent me the pic yet.

Lana: That can wait later. I can just use photoshop or illustrator to insert it through layers. I’m already drawing some stuff anyway.

Robin: I don't think I’ll be contacting him at night. Just sleep.

Lana: You’ve got me fired up. I’ll take that challenge.

Lana stretched her arms and looked at the draft that she had created. It didn’t resemble a man yet, but it would soon enough. She took a pencil, set up an easel, and began to draw.

A week later, from what Lana could tell, she was making a lot of progress. She had shown pictures of her drafts to several people on the internet to ask if they considered it art. Some had not, stating it was just a drawing with no feelings. But others could see that she had a message, even if Lana herself couldn’t tell what it was. She was thrilled to see that some of her passion had seemingly come back.

Her conversations with friends and family also gave her support. An art piece about the old times was sure to be a hit, many had said. Some even asked if she was willing to sell copies, though she replied that she didn’t know if she was gonna be allowed to keep a copy. She had never been asked to create a drawing like that after all. Most of her previous patrons were just simple fanart or similar things, and most of these patrons wanted the art to be shared. She had been curious at how commissions worked in the art world, as she had long forgotten about that since her college days. It seems most arts were handled by various people in the community, and what was considered art was hard to define anyway. It seemed that art could be anything as long as it was well crafted and had meaning.

Her life had started to change for the better too. Before this, she was always just sleeping, watching Netflix on her laptop, drawing some commissions, or. This drawing, however, had given her a schedule. She would draw, and then research. It was quite thrilling to be able to do things her way, instead of having a boss. The rain meant that sometimes, she was still a bit chilled, but that didn’t matter with how active she was.

She had also taken the opportunity to speak with Robin multiple times. They talked about many things about the drawing, and the patron. He and Robin weren’t close, but the guy had been very supportive of a lot of things that Robin was doing, and was the only person in the community he considered a friend. Right now, it was morning, and Lana wanted to know why exactly she was making the drawing:

Lana: How’d you learn about this guy’s commissions anyway?

Robin: I kinda saw him looking sadly at my house. I used to invite him to talk every now and then.

Lana: So how’d you talk to him? A shouting match?

Robin:...kinda? We just stood at our windows talking to each other.

Lana: And the neighbors didn’t complain about it? Come on now, tell the truth.

Robin: I’m serious. And we weren’t really shouting. Our street isn’t that wide anyway.

Lana: How’d your conversation come into art stuff?

Robin: He knew I worked at a magazine illustration. He was an art director for some gallery in Guam before he moved here, and he still collects art apparently. But he can’t do that while he’s in quarantine.

Lana: So how am I gonna deliver this to him? And can I keep any copies? I have a scanner here for copies.

Robin: Gonna have to ask about that. Talk to you later.

Lana took a long look at her progress. A lot of it came from a rather infamous thing called restlessness. She couldn’t sleep without doing at least 3 hours making drafts and then applying it to the main work. It was amazing how quickly she was able to create such a drawing with no experience.

The drawing she made was made with pencils, which she then drew over with pens. Next, she used a few markers to create outlines and to add deeper colors over a few parts of the draw. She took inspiration from two things when she drew these men. First was the “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” painting that she remembered seeing a few years ago when she was backpacking in Germany for a bit. The second inspiration was a few photos she had of looking over a valley behind rails in Cagayan. It was quite scary at the time, but it gave a sense of awe at just how high she was. She wanted to give the drawing a similar feeling.

She went back to the request of the person that she was drawing for before she realized she didn’t even know his name. She at least thought it was a guy, as Robin never corrected her in their chat messages. Anyway, there wasn’t much to say about the request. She had pestered Robin a few days ago to ask if there was anything else about the request, but he said there wasn’t much. He had shown the guy one of her illustrations to ask if there was anything he liked about it. And there was, but he didn’t have anything to say about it. He wanted the drawing to be “pure”. 

And from purity came an inspiration to have the two subjects be two teenagers leaning over a rail seemingly lost in conversation. Something she had missed and was what she thought was a representation of what life was like beforehand. She was almost done with the hair of the left one. She took up her pen and began to draw.

Robin: So anyway, he says you can do anything with it. And he wants the original, at the very least. He says you can send it to him as soon as delivery services are ok again.

Lana: Well that’s good to know. Tell him I might be able to send you a picture later. Anything else you can tell me? Is there a photo of this I can trace yet?

Robin: Not much. And yeah, I’ll send you the photo. He says he realizes it may be hard to trace, so just make a rough outline of the buildings.

Lana: Speaking of him, what’s his name?

Robin: Uh, I actually don’t know. I just call him Leo, cause he likes paintings. He has never told me his name, and he didn’t respond when I asked him. I just kinda started calling him Leo sarcastically, and it struck. I really liked the name Leo anyway, so it was ok for me.

Lana snorted. That was expected of Robin. Always being a bit too enthusiastic about things. Oh well, the name wasn’t really important. She was just gonna put the name at the top right after her artist’s signature. She checked her phone, waiting for the photo to show up. When it did, she was quite happy. It was a picture from the top of a building in Quezon City. She recognized the horizon and those city lights. She really missed the feeling of talking with friends until night time.

Sketching noises were heard as Lana started to trace the buildings. She wasn’t going to perfectly draw this, but she would do her best. She got really fired up. It was already evening, but she was too excited to do anything else but draw right now. She wanted to finish the artwork now! She had already finished the entire foreground. She hoped it wouldn’t take a few hours to finish this. The drawing continued to be completed at a precision she didn’t know she had, and when she stopped 2 hours later, she was exhausted. But she had somehow done it! She had finished everything in a week.

Lana sat down on her bed and chatted on her phone to Robin that she was finished, took a picture of the drawing, and then fell on the bed. She never knew she could draw with such passion before. She guessed it was partly because of the money, but she also thought it was because of the vague goal. With the magazine illustrators, she always had a specific goal. With the freedom of a vague goal, her mind thrived and supplied her with an excellent drawing. Adding the memories she had, she was able to put her feelings of loneliness and depression she had been experiencing into the drawing.

Lana was awoken a few hours later when she noticed that the rain that had been falling all week had stopped. Was this the start of something new? Was this a message? She took a brief shower, finally being able to relax after such an extreme night. Or morning. She didn’t even remember what time she slept. Honestly, she didn’t even know how long she slept.

As she wiped her hair, she took her phone. She was surprised to see it was nearly 2 afternoon. She didn’t even feel that hungry yet. Maybe this art thing was getting a bit too obsessive. The next time she ever did anything like this, she would pace her days way better. There wasn’t much in her notifications. She was kinda surprised that Robin had not yet texted her. It seems that she had sent her photo 14 hours ago. Yet there wasn’t the indication that it was read. Oh well. She might as well prepare the drawing for scanning and preservation.

As she prepared her tools, she realized she had not eaten yet. So she got to her refrigerator and was shocked to see that it was nearly empty. The only things left were two eggs. She checked her rice cooker and saw there wasn’t anything. In her eagerness to finish the artwork the past days, she had forgotten to order groceries. That wasn’t good.

Pondering how to use the eggs, Lana was knocked out of her passiveness when her phone buzzed again. She excitedly ran to the phone, only to nearly drop it when she read what it said.

Robin: I don’t know how to say this… but Leo is in the hospital. I called an ambulance for him when I saw him faint. He seemed to be suffering from high blood pressure. I have no idea if he can pay anything, with the whole expensive pandemic thing.

Feeling faint herself, Lana put her back to a wall and slowly sank. She had exhausted herself for a week for nothing? Was Robin trying to screw her? Was this Leo even real? Lara breathed in and out to calm down. No, that was bad of her to think of. Whatever the truth was, there was no way that she could have anticipated this. There was no one to blame.

Lana started to feel depressed again. What exactly was the point of that suffering? She basically starved herself for nothing. She didn’t even try to make money this week. Maybe she could ask her parents for money, but was she that desperate? She didn’t think so. What was the point? It’s not like she could repay them, and besides, they were probably struggling to pay their fees and bills too.

She had done this anticipated being paid. Was there still any way she could get the money? She doubted that she’d be able to sell this at the price Leo had commissioned for her. Ugh, she should have asked for a downpayment or something. There was always the chance this wasn’t gonna do well, so she might as well be compensated for her time. 

It took Lana around an hour to finally decide what to do. Lana was typing her reply when Robin chatted with her again.

Robin: I think we both know that you need to get paid in some way.  I can get you 1000 dollars in around a month.

Lana: Whoa, that’s too much! Dude, you’re a layout artist. No way you have that much lying around. 

Robin: I have a few friends I can borrow from.

Lana: No. Dude, I appreciate the offer, but right now there’s too much going on. Plus, you don’t owe me anything. You just introduced me.

Robin: But you need to be compensated.

Lana: Right now, the only thing I needed was the courage to do something. You and your friend gave me that. I was foolish to have done something like this without a backup plan or something.

Robin: All right, but please be careful. I don’t know how to proceed.

Lana: Leave everything to me.

Lana got to work with scanning and preserving the drawing. But it dawned on her that art wasn’t necessarily something you needed to be compensated for. What was the use of this art? A remembrance of the good old days. This was a drawing meant to be seen, and if she really wanted to feel compensated, she should use social media and spread this to help people who were struggling with the same loneliness and depression she was feeling.

Not to say that she didn’t want money. She decided to look for art contests online that sponsored art about the pandemic. She knew that there were at least some that were still open. And there were! She decided to pay respect to Leo by indicating that this was an artwork that was originally commissioned. She also posted it on various social media sites, with a message indicating that she was hoping Leo would recover soon, and hoped he would be able to see the picture she had made for him. If he ever wanted to pay her, she would accept some money. She wasn’t doing a charity case, but she wouldn’t accept the full amount either. 

Lana decided that she didn’t care whether or not she would get compensated. To know that she did her best, that she did what she considered art was enough. That she would be able to share this with the rest of the world was enough. She didn’t care if it didn’t get traction, or whether or not she would get paid in an art contest. She decided that she wasn’t that kind of person. She was someone who simply wanted to share her feelings with the world. Lana smiled. This artwork had helped her come to terms with a part of herself that she had forgotten. Now she realized she had to have some empathy. Without empathy, she didn’t have the patience to be kind and tender, because she was only thinking of herself.

Her kindness and tenderness had disappeared in her previous job, where she had focused solely on pleasing her bosses. She had lost her sense of selflessness and aimed only to please her bosses. 

That was why she had all but lost all hope before this. Before the quarantine, Lana realized she had lived her life in a daze. She didn’t know what her plan in life was. Almost everything was just routine to her. Not that she didn’t think of others, but she had thought that doing things to please others was the best way to live. When she was tossed aside, she broke. She relied too much on a goal that wasn’t stable.

Even though these tiring times, Lana would succeed. Life was more than just being good at your job, it was about making the best of your situation. She was thankful to both Robin and Leo for giving her this opportunity to better herself. She hoped she wouldn't let them down.

Lana looked at the clock. She had been using the internet for close to 5 hours now. It was almost noon. She had already posted the picture in so many social media services, and submitted it to several contests. Already, there were some responses, which thrilled her. But that was just a byproduct of submitting art. What she would be happy to see would be critique. If someone could see her potential, she’d know that she was on the right path.

Whatever would happen in the future, Lana was happy to know that she knew who she was again. Whether she would become a magazine illustrator or become a full-time artist, she would return to being passionate about her work. Yeah, she was hungry and tired, but at least she wasn’t soulless. She could always afford to be hungry, but she would never be soulless again.