Til There's Nothing Left [Ruth Interview]

ruth baran

Ruth tugged at the cotton drawstring from the neck of her hoodie. She’d been pleased that at least in being dragged to her death she’d chosen to go out comfortably.

Maybe she’d borrowed some of her grandmother’s famous intuition, maybe god had granted a vision like her pastor had always been talking about. Ruth liked to think it had been common sense to layer soft cotton and to take pieces that she could spend a morning on the concrete of a cold cell floor. And if it hadn’t come to pass, she’d have stripped it all away for a pair of overalls so she could get back to rolling quarters at the laundromat.

But she was here, surrounded by a throng of people in gowns and tuxes, wigs and diamonds. Flash after flash, cameras recording her every move, while she wandered the length of a hall.

Her family didn’t watch much television aside from the grainy, boxy one her father had put to watch across from the counter while they waited for clothes to be finished. She could spend hours watching terrible pre-war pulp films, just about the only thing the capitol hadn’t pulled from the television for some sort of propaganda.

She hardly noticed the hand on her wrist that guided her out of the swell of people all asking overlapping questions (howareyoudoingwhatareyouwearinghowdoesyourfamilyfeel – ). Most of what she had said were murmurs and her swallowing spittle trapped at the back of her throat.

“Tell us about yourself.”

She suddenly had the feeling that she was sitting. As though she hadn’t been whisked across a dark stage, whispered to smile and told to ignore all the lights and men standing around behind the cameras.

“Oh I,” Ruth pushed her shoulders forward and slouched across the seat, “I’m Ruth Baran.”

What else was she supposed to offer?

“You know, I am thrilled to have gotten your attention and this exclusive interview.” The woman across from her reminded Ruth of how people here loved to stretch their faces free of wrinkles. How her mother could've looked the same if she’d spent the last ten years catered to her every whim, not in the heat of dryers or yanking wet fabric from washers. “I’m Madison Rae. It's probably just the hot lights having you not recognize me but you’re on the third biggest network show in Panem. Don’t be nervous!”

At least she was too overwhelmed to have let her nerves get the better of her.

“I’m not nervous.” Her voice was still soft, but flatter, then. Ruth sat up a little straighter in her chair. She rolled her shoulders back.

“Good girl.” Madison Rae leaned over the desk between them with the same sort of grin she’d seen on her pastor’s face when he’d been about to start preaching fire and brimstone. “What’s home like for you? What’s waiting for you back in district eight.”

“My parents own a laundromat. I have a little sister named Mary. We live above it.” Ruth wondered how a whole life could be described in three sentences.

“What did you do for fun back in district eight? Any boys?” Madison brushed back a strand of hair behind her ear as though her hair could’ve been in disarray.

“I went to church. It was most of my life.” Ruth pressed her lips together and felt her cheeks shift down into a frown.

“Church.” Madison tilted her head as though Ruth had given one of her most precious secrets. “Care to tell us what it is that you believe?”

Ruth had been fuzzy on the rules surrounding religion after the war. But then, their congregation met in the basement of a building that had once served as a tannery. Whatever law enforcement existed had bigger fish to fry than thirty people that met on a weekly basis discussing millennia old fictions.

“I believe in the word as it was written years ago,” she said. She moved to rub at her elbow. “That redemption is in doing as much as I can for others and the world around me.”

A pause hung between them, and Ruth looked around behind her. Was it time to go already? Was it over?

But Madison stared at Ruth, deep into and through her before speaking once more:

("what do you think happens when we die?")

Ruth swallowed.

“You were probably taught to think there’s something waiting for you after this.” Madison kept going, same smile. Same fire and brimstone.

“It’s better to have something to believe in when things are hard.” Ruth managed.

“You probably weren’t taught we just decompose. I hear it’s hit or miss in district schools. After it’s done, you’re nothing. Gone. Nada. Does it scare you to think that by tomorrow you might just have been wiped clear out of here?”

Ruth swallowed again. She could’ve quoted scripture. Faith can move mountains. But those who hope in the lord will renew their strength.

“I’m more scared of leaving everything behind than dying.” Clyde would’ve been proud of her, and Evangeline, too. Her friends had always been her best strength. She’d told truth rather than hiding behind someone else’s words.

“Of course, though you have a chance. If you’re willing. Unless that’s off the table because of what you believe?”

Ruth had never hated someone so deeply in such a short period of time but watching the light as it hit Madison and how she looked from her to the camera, Ruth wished she could punch her hard enough to break her nose.

“I’m not stupid.” And yet why was she blushing now?

“I’m sorry?” Madison raised her eyebrows.

“I’m not a child. Just because I might believe in something you don’t.” Ruth’s voice quivered but she bit hard at her tongue.

“I just think we’re all so fascinated by you, Ruth. You and the other twenty-three. We just want to know if you have what it takes! Oh – but it looks like that’s all the time we have. Unless you want to add something before we go to commercial?”

Ruth let the lights fade around her as she sat in silence. Someone grabbed her wrist with a hard pull to get her up and out of the chair. They head out into the dark of the hallway, back down toward the cells.