I Saw Red

Ruby was loved by the small and select group of people that loved her for her long, thick brown hair that she hated so much, her twenty and four pairs of high heeled shoes that she never wore and the way that she would never let anybody else make her coffee. Ruby was mocked and teased for her name, they called her Ruby Red. Because her name was a color; the color of red. Her favorite color. She wore mostly red. Even her lips were rarely seen by anyone but her without a shade of red on them. The roses she kept on her apartment balcony were red, and she tended to them every day.

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Ruby rushed around her city apartment panicking about how she was late. Late for work again. She was half dressed and had to leave 10 minutes ago. Would the customers really not be able to handle coffee not made by her at the Comfort Food Diner? Josh said they wouldn't, but surely they could wait 30 more minutes. She opened up her closet and realized that out of her one hundred and something outfit choices she had nothing to wear. Panic stricken she grabbed a pair of jeans and a black blouse. Plain was what it would be if she couldn't choose. She ran to the bathroom to tie her long and annoyingly thick dark hair into a loose bun. She would get it cut or layered next week. She was always going to get it cut or layered next week. She applied a bit of mascara and went to gather her things into her handbag, as she was leaving the bathroom she noticed her face; it would never do. She was not wearing any red today, and her brightest shade of red lipstick was going to fix that. Leaving the bathroom with her now fixed self she picked up her handbag and left the apartment.

It was only at the end of the hallway did her guardian angels tell her what she had forgotten to do. How could she have forgotten? She would surely be sent to Hell for this most amazing and terrible sin were she not to return and make amends for it. So return she did. Out on the balcony her roses stared at her in shock and disbelief. How could she neglect them so? Their loving and caring mother who had raised them from seedlings. They watched her cautiously as she walked towards them with a watering can and finally quenched their thirst for another 24 hours. Perhaps they thought she was trying to poison them so she would not have to bare the burden of feeling responsible for them any longer.

"Don't ever forget us," one said to her pleadingly.

"I won't," she replied.

"Promise?" Said another.

"I promise," swore Ruby as they all turned away from her towards the sun, not really listening at all.

Ruby arrived with a splash and a splatter into the Comfort Food Diner at 10 a.m. Of all the days it could have rained, it had to rain on the one she was late. Placing her red frilly umbrella aside, she looked up to see Josh, her friend of 10 years who had missed out on the first 12 of her life said loudly, "Where have you been Miss Red?"

Ruby smiled, "I slept in."

"You weren't speaking to your roses again, were you?" He asked with a cheeky tone that wiped the smile off of her face. Had he read her mind? Was he inside it right now, twisting and turning gears that should not - should never - be moved? She let a small and fake laugh escape her red lips.

10:40 a.m. at the diner and the boss didn't seem to care she had been late.

11:15 a.m. at the diner and no one seemed to have complained about Ruby not being there to make them coffee between the hours of 9 and 10 that morning.

12:30 p.m. and it was time for lunch. Lunch at the diner was like love. It left you feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. It wasn't called the Comfort Food Diner just to sound witty. The best thing was that Ruby, being a waitress there, didn't have to pay. She was just sitting down to her bowl of chips and gravy when Josh butted in with his, "Would you like me to make you a coffee?"

"Noooo," complained Ruby.

"Why do you always say that?" Was his bemused reply.

"Because you won't make it right. You never do!" Ruby worried he would get upset with her for saying this. But good old predictable Josh just walked off with a chuckle.

3:30 p.m. after the lunch rush which Ruby had narrowly avoided by eating her own lunch too-slowly-on-purpose, she watched the world go by through the diner windows. She understood those old people that did nothing all day; just sitting in an armchair, thinking. She was going to be like that. One day. One day she would marry a rich handsome man, and he would leave all his money to her; and then he would die, before her, leaving her with her roses to talk to, and nothing to worry about, nothing to do, but sit in an armchair all day, and think.

In the background the radio played and blurred itself into the back of her mind. "They just drove off and left it all behind them. But where were they going without ever knowing the way?..."

"Penny for your thoughts?" Interrupted Josh, making Ruby jump.

"Mm." She replied half-heartedly.

He leaned in close to her. "I didn't tell you this, but don't look in the lost property, okay?" He winked and walked away into the kitchen

But Ruby did look in the exact place he had told her told her not too. And what she found was bliss. An amazing, red, 40's style coat. Would anybody notice if she took it? Was it immoral? Finder's keeper’s loser's weepers?

Later that day a small child watched a lady in red lipstick and red umbrella that was almost, but not quite, as red as her coat, rush to catch a bus in the rain.

"Look at the red lady, Mommy," said the child, pointing at Ruby. Ruby heard and smiled a huge camera smile at the child while the embarrassed mother pulled the child away. People noticed Ruby. She was real. She wasn't invisible anymore.

She had reasoned with the boss saying that she would return it if the original owner enquired about it. The Coat had been there for 6 months anyway.

And the next day The Impossible happened. All for Ruby Red, the laws of The Universe had been rearranged.

A boy asked her out.

His name was Sandi, and he was not the type of boy who asked a girl like Ruby out. This boy was beautiful. With long, blonde, rockstar hair and deep blue eyes. While Ruby, Ruby was worthless trash. It was The Coat, although she had not been wearing it when he met her its magic had worn off on her.

They arranged to meet on the next Friday night, at a posh and almost certainly expensive restaurant. And that Friday night was the night that Ruby Red lost her virginity at age twenty and two. It was Ruby's personal experience so we won't go into details (perhaps because the author is actually envious, lazy, physically inexperienced or even embarrassed).

They woke up in her bed, on her red bed sheets that were almost, but not quite, as red as her coat. That morning they talked, and Ruby discovered that not only was Sandi sweet and extremely modelesque, but also intelligent.

Months went by, and Ruby was happy. Her roses were happy. Her roses respected her. Almost. They were also a jealous clique. They chittered and chattered and gossiped about her and Sandi.

"He'll leave her soon."
"It won't last long."
"It's Lust not Love…"

Maybe The Roses were right.

On a Monday morning Ruby proudly walked into the Comfort Food Diner, hung up her red coat and set to work, wiping down tables.

"You're not yourself Ruby," noted Josh. "You've changed. I don't like that coat, maybe you should put it back were it came from."

"I haven't changed, Josh." Ruby replied, smiling. "And it's not The Coat. It's Sandi."

Josh rolled his eyes and walked off. Good ol' Josh. Maybe he was speaking to The Roses. The Coat was not just a red coat. It was redder than red. It was the embodiment of red. If it ceased to exist, red ceased to exist.

Ruby had lunch that day at the diner with Sandi.

"You should get a better job. This place isn't good enough for you," Sandi leaned over the table and whispered to her, "And that Josh guy is weird."

"I like it here," she said. "And that Josh guy is my friend."

At that moment, a moment to end all moments, a modelesque woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes walked into the diner and looked at Ruby's red coat. She wasn't admiring it. She eyed Josh who was at the counter and walked up to him. They swapped a few words, as the woman pointed to Ruby's coat, and Josh looked at Ruby. It was a horrible look, and Ruby's heart fell into her stomach as the woman approached her.

"Excuse me," the woman said. "My name is Tamsin. I'm enquiring about that red coat you have hanging up. I believe it belongs to me. Thankyou for keeping it for so long, I'll just take it now, shall I?"

Ruby felt her stomach acids eating her heart as she realized Tamsin knew she had been wearing it. "Y-yeah. Take it."

Tamsin raised her eyebrow and smiled at Sandi. "Thanks," she said while still looking at him. He smiled back. It was a real smile.

Ruby missed the bus that day. She walked home in the freezing cold without her red coat. She was invisible again. No one looked at her even for a split second.

Within the next few days Ruby was herself again. She was also paranoid and depressed. How could this Injustice be done? Tamsin did not deserve that coat. The Coat belonged to Ruby. It was hers by Right and Law Of The Universe.

She sat and cried on her balcony in front of her roses as she felt the stomach acids burning her heart.

The Roses were annoyed. "You can't sleep, so you won't let us sleep? Is that what this is? No one cares about you, Ruby. Go back to bed."

"I've still got Sandi," she could hardly speak from all the crying.

"And what would he do if he saw you like this?" One said in an accusing tone. "What do you think he's doing right now? Who do you think he's with?"

"No," said Ruby, adamantly. "You're lying."

He wasn't with her, he couldn't be with her. Anyone but her. Not Tamsin, The Thief. A thief...

Ruby could go to Sandi's any time she liked, couldn't she? Even now? She was his girlfriend after all. She got dressed, gathered a few extra dollars and caught a taxi there. A phone call wasn't enough. She needed to know she wasn't alone in the world.

Outside his front door she could feel her anxiety building. What would he think of her visiting him this late at night, with all of her eye make up smeared across her cheeks? Why had it not occurred to her that she could have also visited Josh?

Ruby knocked on Sandi's door. No answer. She had the keys, luckily. It was strange, to feel like an intruder, tiptoeing into his bedroom. There he was, lying in his bed, fast asleep. But... Ruby leaned against the wall and felt the acids consume the rest of her heart. Because the person in the bed was not Sandi, but Tamsin.

Invisible Ruby silently left the bedroom and sat on the couch in the lounge room. Invisible Ruby silently started to cry from the empty space where her heart had been.

Perhaps it would turn out that Sandi and Tamsin were long lost twins. Then she would get pregnant and have retard children. Maybe Tamsin would be in an accident and have her face horrible deformed and mutilated. And it still wouldn't be enough. Tamsin could never see as much red or feel as much pain as Ruby did in that moment, when Tamsin had taken her life and heart from her.

And then the anger disappeared, and there was nothing; like the nothingness where her heart should have been. She knew what she had to do: put and end to what needed to end.

__________

Ruby Red would always be remembered and loved for her long, thick brown hair that she hated so much, her twenty and four pairs of high heeled shoes that she never wore, the way she would never let anybody else make her coffee and her red roses that she kept on her apartment balcony and tended to every day.

And the image that would forever remain embedded in Sandi's mind for as long as he lived is as follows; Ruby, lying in a pool of her own blood on the bathroom floor. Red blood that would stain the pure white tiles. Blood as red as red. As red as her bed sheets, as red as her roses, as red as her lipstick.

And almost, but not quite, as red as her coat.

I’ve been hurt and I’ve been blind.
I’m not sure that I’ll be fine.
I never thought it would end this way…