Kid Blink peered through his tired eyes and strained his neck over the machine. His eyelids fluttered every few seconds as exhaustion tried to consume his body, but Blink refused to be swallowed.
"Jeremy, just 20 more minutes and we're outta here," Mush announced.
Blink yawned. "I know, Alex…" He stopped to yawn again. "I'm tryin' to stay awake."
Mush smiled sleepily at Blink and leaned over his machine. Mush didn't think it was so bad printing papers, but like Blink, he'd rather be out roaming the city and selling them. Blink sighed and stood up, then added more ink to the main machine, located several feet away. The machine seemed to stutter and choke on the ink.
"What the…?" Mush asked.
"Cripes. Damn machine better not be broken…" Blink grumbled.
"Ya better fix it before Paul gets back," Mush advised.
"Nah, ya think?"
Blink tilted his body against the machine and firmly placed his feet under a steel bar connected to it. He closed his right eye and moved pieces of the machine aside, squinting inside to search for the problem.
"Hurry up!"
"Shut up, Alex!"
Mush jostled Blink's shoulder to try and look at what had caused the machine to screw up.
"Get off me, I'm gonna slip, ya idiot!" Blink barked.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" screamed Paul, the printing manager. Alarmed by his boss's voice, Mush fell backwards and landed on the floor. Blink, who's head was in part of the machine, shot up, and banged his skull on a large switch. Ink shot out of the machine from a small tube and into Blink's left eye.
"Aw shit!"
With both his eyes closed, Blink tried to pull himself out of the machine. He didn't notice the sharp needle near his ink-blinded eye. He twitched his head slightly and suddenly felt his eye being stabbed.
"Agggghhh!" he cried.
"Ya alright!" Mush yelled as he stood up. He placed his hands on Blink's back and helped him get out of the machine. Paul, aggravated by the two, walked away.
"When you get cleaned up, come see me…" he growled.
"What's with ya eye?" Mush asked as Blink groaned and clawed at his eye. "Move ya hand!"
"Can't…" Blink breathed.
"Move your damn hand!"
Blink slowly pulled away his hand, which was covered in ink, tears, and blood.
"Open ya eye!"
"I can't, Alex!"
"Aw cripes, just do it!"
"I CAN'T!"
Mush inched his fingers toward Blink's eye, then gingerly opened it while Blink swore and tried to fight him.
"Aw man…"
"Is it bad?"
"Jeremy…Can you see outta your eye?"
"Nah…"
Mush cringed at the sight. Blink's eye was bleeding vigorously, and the white of it was black from the ink.
"Oh gosh…we gotta get this cleaned…"
Paul walked over to them again. His face looked impatient.
"First you break my machine, and now ya hurt yaself! You two fools aren't helping this company at all. You're fired!"
Blink touched his leather eye patch, while looking at Mush with his good eye.
"Ya mind takin a look at it for me?"
Mush shrugged, this was a daily routine. Blink had refused to look at his eye, even 3 months after the accident. Mush lifted the eye patch and examined the eye. It was still protected by Blink's forever swollen eyelids, but Mush didn't feel like looking at it anymore.
"If I lied and said it looks great, what would you think, Jeremy?"
"Well, I wouldn't think, I'd just punch ya, Alex"
"Then your eye looks utterly awful" Mush said with a smile.
"Thanks…" Blink said dryly.