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.

“I’m going to tell you something important,” he said.

“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.

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

Her head cleared a bit, and she found words for the rustling leaves. Take me with you, one of the trees seemed to say. And then: Do you know who I am?

On the far side of it rose a small hill. The hill was rocky, oddly treeless, and covered with some sort of vinelike growth—a vivid green, with hand-shaped leaves and tiny flowers. The plant spread across the entire hill, clinging so tightly to the earth that it almost seemed to be squeezing it in its grasp. The flowers looked like poppies, the same size and color: a brilliant stained-glass red.

What remained was the inorganic, the synthetic—the metal and plastic and glass—everything else had been eaten. And that was the right word for it, too: eaten. Because it was the flowering vine that had done this, Jeff realized, not a passive force—not rot or dissolution—but an active one.

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

“Because I don’t know what it feels like to starve. I don’t know what choices I’d make in the face of it.

“I don’t want to die here.” Mathias gave him half a smile. “I don’t want to die anywhere.”

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