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The wind whipped up hard. I could feel the air outside cut through my clothes, and cool air blew through the window, same as I usually felt when the wind blew outside.
All my thoughts were interrupted by the loud roaring noise of the wind. I looked out the window and saw the sky darker than usual and instead of clear water in the pond, it seemed the pond water was covered in ash and stirred the ash around.
I was sitting at my desk at the living room watching the television, looking at the rain. Maybe it was just a temporary apocalypse and we just had a volcanic eruption and everything would return back to normal. But I saw the sky. It was dark.
"Is that never going to clear up, Father? Are we doomed to live in such darkness?" I said, upset that everything was so out of control.
"Yes dear, that is what it means," my father responded.
My father, the owner of the leather and wallet store in town, always had a lot of business, good and bad. His company had been open for more than thirty years and he became wealthy. He was able to employ a lot of people here. After I had given birth to my newborn son, my father took me to his company to have lunch, where we talked about the latest affairs at the firm.
Then I went back home, walked in, and lay down on my bed. I took off my silky dress and put on a black T-shirt that goes well with black skinny jeans. Then I thought it was time to make sure my son was asleep so that I can lie down. I placed him in his crib and turned off the light. He looked so cute. Even when he was rather small and still just a baby, we would take him to a doctor and get the newborn checkup done together. It was good helping father help son enjoy his first sleep together.
I walked out the room and went down to the living room. I walked around the multi-room living room and noticed the sky was quite dark like night but also strangely, the ash that was covering the pond seemed far away. A few hours later, the sky stayed dark like it did not matter. I spoke to my father in private. I told my father I was not sure what was going on outside of the house. The ash just did not seem to be that deep in the water, however, the sky remained dark. That was not just the expected darkness. It was much darker.
"Is the sky going to stay that dark forever? I asked.
"I wish I knew," he replied.
I walked back to my room and closed the door. The next day, I woke up and I could not see a thing. It was rather dark but the room was just darker than the day before. Almost no sunlight was able to shine through my window.
"What happened?" I thought. I did not think it was possible for Earth to look so strange. I was so scared. I was so glad I lived in a big house with only my husband and I and my son. I did not want to go outside. I did not want to know what was going on outside of the house. I just stayed in the room and tried to sleep like the night before and regain money for my son. Eventually, I lost track of time. Then, I felt confused. I did not know what to do.
I spoke to my father. He told me that it had been almost a week since that volcano erupted. He said it blocked out the sky and the ash blocked out the sun. I wondered what happened to the sun. I wondered if the sky would clear up after a while, but it did not. The sky did not clear up.
I waited patiently for my baby's first birthday of his life. He was five months old, which happened to be during the coldest summer since the geological history of my country. I missed the sun. I missed the air. The air was so far away from us. All I wanted was the warmth. Even the room felt cold.
The first day of the new month passed and the earth was still covered in ash, making the sky black like the night. One night, the ash started to look like water, like it was raining. At first, I was so glad, however, when I saw the ash was like water, I knew that the world was changing. The world was getting warmer like crazy. Life was changing. The irrigation system of my father's company was not functioning, which was extremely bad for the crop harvest. The water seemed so different from the water I usually saw; I could not tell if they were filtered or not. It was not good.
I tried my best to figure out what was going on outside. I was lost. I was not sure what to do. I could not help but worry about my baby's health and his health. I wanted so much for him to be okay, and if he was having a tough time, I could not help but be worried. I did not know what was going on. I did not know where to start. I did not understand what was happening. I was so scared and I did not know what to do. I knew that we had to leave the house soon.
"What is going on, Father? Why is it so dark? Where are the animals? Why is everything snow-white?" I did not understand why our world was getting so dark and I could not see where I was walking. I thought that we should only get out of bed, then the ash would be gone. I thought things would get better after a couple of days. I never thought it would get like this.
"Father, how can you be so negative about the world when it looks like this," I said.
I tried to relax, thinking that everything would soon return back to what it was. I did not want to go outside because it might only get worse than what it was now. Then, as I was lying down in the morning I heard a small voice whisper on the door.
"I am scared," the boy said.
My son was right next to the door. He was crying and I ran to the door. I opened it and I asked him what happened. He said he was scared. I sat on the bed and hugged him. I cried with him. My husband and my son were in my father's house on the other side of town and they were so scared and unhappy. My husband did not know what happened, but he did not know what to do. He felt helpless and he said he tried so many things. He told me that nothing was working.
"I am scared, Mommy. I want us to be okay," said my son.
"Don't be scared, my sweetest son. I am here with you. We are doing something we can do to make sure we will be okay, okay?" I replied.