Asher ✓

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AUGUST 14, 2020 / ELMHURST HOSPITAL CENTER

"How's it feel, champ? Want to get up and try it out?" Kelvin asked the eleven-year old in the hospital bed.

Chelsea, the young patient, was born with a congenital disorder that made the nerves in her lower legs increasingly more painful as she got older. She opted to have both feet amputated, and when her parents reached out to Delrov Technologies through their sponsorship programme, they were more than happy to look after her prosthetic needs.

Chelsea slid gingerly out of the bed, supported by two crutches and the careful attentions of her doctor, her parents, her older brother, Kelvin, Ryanel and Asher himself. The small day-lit room was quite at capacity.

Kelvin and Chelsea's doctor were in conversation with Chelsea about her future with prosthetic feet. She was an animated, bright kid — Asher could already tell from the staunch way she'd made her own choices. Kelvin, as a biomedical engineer, and the doctor teamed up to relay the maintenance side of things, physiotherapy and care.

When Chelsea successfully bore her own weight with minimal help from the crutches, smiling proudly at her family, her mother burst into tears.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she cried at Asher and Ryanel. 

She pulled Asher into a fierce hug, which — considering Asher's height and her lack thereof — forced him to stoop over and awkwardly pat the woman's back. "I don't know what we would have done without you three — and your fantastic company. You've helped us do right by Chels."

"You're welcome," Asher replied warmly. "It's just what we endeavour to do for our community."

Ryanel rounded up everyone in the room for the obligatory publicity photo, his Canon in hand and its strap around his neck. Asher had always thought he looked less like an engineer and more like an artist, though especially so in that moment.

The occupants of the room crowded together around the bed, where Chelsea had re-positioned herself.

"Three, two, one, cheese!" Ryanel counted down, before the flash went off and stored on film the new beginning that was unfurling in the room.

__________

While Kelvin was finishing his relay of information to Chelsea and her family inside the room, Ryanel and Asher waited on some metal bleachers against a wall.

The hospital was bustling around them, but Asher was, for some reason, hyper-aware of the man sitting next to him.

Even as announcements were broadcast through the PA systems and nurses strolled past with trainers that squeaked on the linoleum, Asher felt insulated against everything outside of a meter radius. Within that radius, however, it was a special kind of hell. 

Had you ever known the deepest depths of a person that was now only attainable at the surface?

He heard the faint rustling sounds of Ryanel's jeans as he bounced his knee up and down — a bad habit of his, whenever his mind was unoccupied. When he dared allow his eyes — previously trained on the blue flecks within the eggshell-coloured flooring — to drift left, he noticed Ryanel had gotten new shoes. Then, looking higher, Asher saw that his forearms had tanned considerably over the summer.