Ruby in the Ashes

I come home every day to scratches all over the walls.

And once a week, I fill the scratches in with putty that I have tinted to match the color of the paint on the walls.

And once a month, I re-paint the walls to smooth out the putty-filled scratch marks.

This is only in the living room, though. It’s because Ruby flies through the living room everyday when she is not in the basement. Ruby is my cardinal, and she is as red as you can imagine a bright red to be. She brings much needed color into my home. The basement is where she stays most of the time. I set it up for her like the outside would look. Except, ever since the eruption, the outside doesn’t look the way it should.

Ruby has warmth, berry plants, and light down in the basement. I made sure to make it very colorful and vibrant so she wouldn’t feel like she sticks out.

Every day when I leave for work, I open the door to the living room so she can fly up. She perches on the back of the couch and her feet leave scratch marks on the walls when she flies in large circles.

I spend a lot of time cleaning up after her and caring for her, but there’s not much else to do anymore. I think she’s happy.

I mentioned the eruption earlier, so here is the story:

The sky turned orange around noon on a day that was unconventionally warm. It was a quick change, like what you see in the sunset colors; one second its blue and the next, a dark orange. Not a light orange like the fruit, but like a dark orange on a burning coal in a fire pit.

The smoke appeared in the sky soon after, billowing out of the volcano that was hundreds of miles away, but was so big it appeared much closer. After the smoke, ash came. It was almost like all the oxygen in the air had turned into ash – it was everywhere. People ran in their houses when that started happening and shut their doors and windows. Here in Hawaii, all the windows are sealed for this kind of thing.

Unfortunately, I was on a walk at the time, about a half a mile from my home. I had left my windows open upon leaving for my walk. When the sky started to turn orange, I broke into a run towards home. When the smoke started rolling over the sun, I was at a dead sprint. It was because of the ash that I fell because I had started coughing real bad. My hands dug into the gravel as I caught myself, and at first I thought the redness on the ground was from my blood. It wasn’t. It was a feather from a cardinal, who, about an arm’s length away, was struggling against the ash coming down like snow does in the Northern parts. She tried to fly, but was quickly whirled back to the ground. She rolled like tumbleweed towards me. I instinctively reached out and grabbed her, shielding her bright red body from the dark gray ash trying to destroy it. She looked up at me when I put my hands around her like a wall. She didn’t struggle.

I stood to my feet and covered my mouth with the top of my shirt and ran the rest of the way home. I slipped inside my front door and frantically ran around the house to close all the open windows. Ruby stayed curled up in my left hand as I did this.

I closed all the doors to the living room and placed her on the floor carefully as the large window across from us was getting pounded with ash. It was dark like nighttime outside now. Ruby sat in the middle of the floor. I slowly backed away to give her space. I remembered that I had some blueberries in the refrigerator and went to grab them.

When I came back with the berries in my hand, Ruby was on top of the lamp near the window. It seemed like she was watching the gray take over outside.

I had never experienced a volcanic eruption until now, but I knew that we wouldn’t be going outside anytime soon. I also knew outside would not look the same for a very long time.

That was three months ago. Since then, Ruby has been the most color I see throughout my day. Gray ash is still everywhere outside, and only some patches of grass are starting to grow past it.

Once I took in Ruby, I filled my basement floor with a layer of dirt and put potted berry plants all over down there. She eats the berries every day. Sometimes I will release some insects down there for her, but not very often because it makes me uneasy.

I still have to leave for work most days, but when I come home, she will sing at me and fly to greet me. Sometimes she sits on my shoulder, but not very often. Usually that only happens if I am falling asleep on the couch watching tv.

Sometimes , when I haven't seen her for awhile, I will stick my head down into the basement to see what she is doing, but she always hears me coming. I try to tiptoe down the carpeted stairs, but whenever I peek around the corner, she is already looking at me from wherever she is in the room.

I don’t know what I would have done without her vibrant color and cheerful songs these past months of gray. I don’t like to think about releasing her when the trees and shrubs start to revive.

But I can’t focus on that today, because I have to stay busy.

Today is the 6^th day of the month; the day that I repaint all of the living room walls.