Rose-Tinted Melancholy

Instructions

“He wasn’t even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man. Whereas it looked as if I was the one who’d come up emptyhanded. But I was sure about me, about everything, surer than he could ever be, sure of my life and sure of my death I had waiting for me… I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn’t done that… Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I’ve lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people’s deaths or a mother’s love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we’re all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers?” ― Albert Camus, The Stranger Malone sat upon the dock of the leviathan-infested lake again. He had been coming here to rest at the edge of the murky blood and watch the beasts tear one another to shreds every day for exactly a month and two weeks now. This time, however, he had to sit upon the edge of the dock rather than next to the beams holding it up; a small change, one he simply made out of necessity- a short, loud, eccentric woman had taken his usual spot, and Malone did not have the patience to deal with her, or people in general. She was short, loud, and appeared to be holding a metal rod, of which she was using to poke at the blood, and exclaim in awe when it stuck to the pole. She made his ears hurt, and he had attempted to walk away several times, but she had always followed. "Malone!!" He heard her wail, and mourned the decision of telling her his name, and not even requesting hers back, leaving him with no way to reject her demands. "Look!! Come look!!" Malone leaned over the edge, his broad, tall form casting a shadow over where the dark haired girl sat. She was poking something with the rod- an incredibly ordinary rock, it's only defining feature being how flat it is. "Look!! Look, it's a circle-rock!" "..A circle-rock?" Malone repeated, tilting his head. That was not the name of any rocks he knew, and it was too drenched in blood for him to identify it. "Yes, a circle-rock!! I remember these from when I was a wee little lad!" The woman exclaimed, dropping the pole with a loud bang and making Malone flinch, before lifting up the rock and holding it to him as if she were presenting something of much more importance, such as a branch from a tree. Malone blinked in utter confusion- how would a rock ingrain itself so much into someone's childhood to achieve such a delighted response? "..Lad? Don't you mean lass?" He rumbled, and the woman shook her head. "Nay, lad!" She exclaimed, yet had clearly moved past that with the speed she used for everything in her life. She had seated herself on the shore, the grimy liquid licking at her destroyed shoes as she cradled it in her hands. "You've never played with rocks as a child?" The woman questioned, squinting up at Malone. "..I never played with much as a child. I would reckon I've really only found enjoyment in building," The man murmured as he settled himself a bit more, his legs dangling over the edge. The eccentric woman had already shot to her feet. "Well, let me show you how to use them!" She announced, winding up her arm before sending the rock flying at the lake. It skipped on the water- exactly once- before sinking miserably. "How.. anticlimactic," He murmured, watching where it landed, before getting a light hit to the foot. "Nay, do not speak in such foul tongue!" She snapped. "I, Lady Halcyon, declare that it had been INCREDIBLY climactic!!" Halcyon. Malone silently made a note of that name. It was a strange one. "Halcyon?" He repeated. "Yes, Halcyon!" She chirped, smiling up at him. "Who would name their child Halcyon? Isn't that the word for-" "Nay!" Halcyon cut him off, shaking her head before he could even finish his sentence. "'Tis the perfect name for a lady like I!" Malone was tossed into a state of mild despair, thanks to her butchering of language. "It.. it would be 'Lady like me'," He corrected, before getting another hit to the foot. "Nay, 'tis 'Lady like I', because I declare it to be so!" She insisted, before skittering off to go grab another rock. She picked up a perfectly smooth one, before returning to Malone. "Here! You try! Come down here!" Malone just sighed. This was a pointless argument. He reached down, and gently took the stone from her. He didn't want to be too harsh, as that can make him seem dangerous, and for some reason he felt the urge to avoid such a thing. Malone climbed down from the dock, and attempted to copy her movement.