Secret Life
Interlude 4
As for the darkness to the south, it never advanced or retreated, but, like a perpetual thunder cloud threatening rain, remained in position: a wall of gray to block all traffic, all commerce, all thought. There were those who had passed on into the south, but no one ever saw them again. Some nights, lights would be seen in the southern darkness and in the morning strange creatures found dead at its perimeter. But over time it became as much a part of the landscape as the shopping mall and the fast-food restaurants. No one remarked upon it. No one cared. No one spared it a second thought.
Liberation
From floor to floor, the vine began to know its own deep green strength. The woman who had brought it to the building had left long ago with the young janitor, but it no longer needed her. Tendrils of an advance guard of triumphant yellow blossoms had found the outside of the building and begun to discreetly colonize cracks and indentations. Water coolers had been suborned to feed it. Any plant on any floor rooted in any kind of soil found a sly invader in its midst: a little curling vine exploring that soil with it.
The plant began to thicken and mature within its hidden passageways. The blossoms hardened into fruit, blackened, and fell off. The seeds sprouted in the most unexpected places, rattling through filters and vents to fall on desks and floors. The plant grew brown and tough. It could feel the sun all around it but not upon it, except in that niggling place where it had reached the outside. That tiny scout sent back the most pleasurable of sensations. The vine flexed and pulled and writhed. Ceiling tiles popped in remote corridors. Walls bulged. The Head Janitor muttered darkly to himself about the end of the world.
The people of the second floor embraced the change. They opened up their air system by order of their new leader, a pale man dressed in a black business suit who liked to climb across the ceiling. Great draping vines fell out of the ceiling, trailed across the floor. Soon a dense forest covered the second floor, and the people of the second floor lived among it in solitude and peace.
The vine grew stronger still.
Until one day, it filled every crack, every crevice, every secret area of the building. It had reached as far as it could go. And still the sun maddened and teased it.
The building began to crumble from the pressure, the stone and metal subverted, infiltrated, by vegetation, compromised beyond repair. The cascade of ruin moved inward and outward, everywhere revealing the miracle of green: a slow avalanche that took many weeks.
First to leave were the people of the second floor. The vine rent a gaping hole in the side of the building, the vine feeling for the earth. They crawled down the vine, still buzzing their fey speech, their possessions strapped to their backs. Led by the mimic, they disappeared into the southern gloom, never to be seen again. It is said that when they reached the perimeter of that melancholy place, the mimic gave out a great cry, raised his arms, smiled widely.
Others tried to fight back, enlisting the help of the janitors, but it was no use: cracks had appeared in the very foundation, and the sweet nectar smell of the vine was everywhere. The edifice began to crumble. The fifth floor, long since abandoned except by the Shadow Cabinet, fell to the street in an almost silent collapse in the middle of a cloudless day. Empty briefcases shattered on the pavement below. Now the building wore a cascading green fountain of vines down its sides.
After a while, all was still. The company was no longer really a company anymore. Half had fled. Most of the rest had been drawn back by the sheer rote power of routine, but this did not hold them for long. In pairs and packs, they drifted away. Gradually, the parking lot became empty in the middle of the day. The offices nearby became abandoned, bereft.
The vine kept growing—under the pavement, under the topsoil, coming up in odd and unexpected places, always seeking the light.
