The Ruins

by Scott Smith

She was a gloomy person. She didn’t have the gift of happiness; somewhere along the way, someone had neglected to give it to her, and now she made everyone else suffer for her lack of it.

Sometimes he felt he was the only one of them who knew how to move through the world.

They both knew who she was, how she’d rather be with the group, doing something she didn’t like, than alone, doing something she enjoyed.

“If you’re not careful, you can reach a point where you’ve made choices without thinking. Without planning. You can end up not living the life you’d meant to. Maybe one you deserve, but not one you intended.” Here he wagged his finger again. “Make sure you think,” he said. “Make sure you plan.”

There were so many rules to remember. No wonder people ended up in places they’d never chosen to be.

All three Greeks were like this; sometimes they tried to mime their meaning or draw something to explain themselves, but mostly they just held forth, making no attempt to clarify what they were saying. It was as if the uttering of it was all that mattered; being understood was beside the point.

He liked drama, conflict, the rush and tumble of other people’s emotions.

There was always something odd to feel if only you stopped and searched for it.

Stacy wasn’t certain; she’d never bothered to pay attention to details like that, and was always regretting it, the half knowing, which felt worse than not knowing at all, the constant sense that she had things partly right, but not right enough to make a difference.

“It will be whatever it is, no? Nothing, something—our believing one thing or another will matter not at all in the end.”