Contemplating Absurdity PV Rowan Vexeley Completed

The library was quiet at this time of day, curfew hours were very close so most students retired to their common rooms, only a few still lingered around the castle and the library. She was sitting at a table near the back, tucked between a pillar and a bookshelf. She was holding an open copy of The Myth of Sisyphus between her hands on the table. Her dark brown hair fell in a heavy fringe across her forehead. Her face was pale, almost waxy in the grey afternoon light, and she was wearing a simple white t-shirt, the collar stretched and soft from too many washes. Her jeans were baggy, faded at the knees. On her feet, a pair of old boots, scuffed, dirty, the laces tied in loose, uneven loops. Around her neck, a thin silver chain with a small cross, tarnished, old, the kind of thing you might find in a convent gift shop and wear out of habit rather than faith.

When the boy spoke, she looked up slowly, she hadn't noticed him sit down, which meant he moved quietly, or she had been more absorbed in the book than she thought, he was looking at her, or rather, he was looking at the book. He had blonde hair and a freckled face, one she didn't recognize. Then again, Rowan didn't recognise most people and forgot faces rather quickly, she never thought of that as a flaw and it never bothered her. The boy was whispering about Sisyphus, about cheating death twice, about ending up in Tartarus. She blinked at him, a smile slowlig growing on her lips only to disapear shortly.

Cheating death twice. And for what? A rock, a hill for eternity. She thought about that and the absurdity of it. About how Sisyphus had tricked Thanatos, had bound Death itself, had walked out of the underworld like he owned the place. And still... Still, he ended up pushing a boulder up a hill for all of eternity. No reward or escape. Just the same task, over and over, until the end of time. That's the thing about cheating fate, Fate always finds a way to make you pay. She looked at the boy. At his curious face, and his curious knowledge.

"Cheating death twice," she said, her voice low and dry. "And still ending up with the worst retirement plan in history." She glanced at the book in her hands, then back at him. "Camus says to imagine him happy. That the struggle itself is enough. That meaning isn't something you find, it's something you create, even when the creating is pointless." She paused, tilting her head sideways while staring at him.

"I think that's just a fancy way of saying we're all pushing rocks. Some of us just have better views."

Word count: 399

@Rowan Vexeley

Hex code: #1b3b64

Rowan listened. She didn't interrupt or nod. She just sat there, knees pulled up, her green eyes fixed on him while he talked about fate and choice and whether any of it mattered.

Are we the readers, or just another set of characters on a page?

She thought about that, about the convent and about the way her life had felt written before she was born. She had spent years trying to rewrite it and take the pen, take control for once. To prove that she wasn't just a character in the nuns' narrative of punishment and redemption. But maybe that was the point. Maybe everyone was a character, maybe everyone was a reader. Maybe the line between the two was thinner than anyone wanted to admit.

"I don't know if Sisyphus is happy," she said finally, her voice low. "I don't think that's the right question to ask." A pause."The right question is whether it matters. Whether he's happy or miserable or somewhere in between, whether the rock cares, whether the hill cares, whether any of it means anything."

She glanced at him.

"I don't believe in fate. I think we make choices and I think we live with the consequences. I think sometimes we cheat death and sometimes death catches up and sometimes the rock falls and sometimes... "

The warning bell rang before she could finish. Rowan's head snapped toward the sound, her thoughts scattering like leaves in wind. The library had gone dark around them, darker than she'd realized and only three students or so were scattered around the library already gathering their things o leave. The candles had burned low and the windows were black. They had been talking for hours which was more than Rowan had ever talked since she came to Hogwarts.

Curfew. She looked at the boy, his face was half in shadow, half lit by the dying candlelight. She didn't know his name, she hadn't asked nor did he ask for hers and maybe it was better that way, two nameless strangers talking about Sisyphus.

This was interesting, she thought, which was a huge compliment as Rowan seldom found anything interesting or worth her attention and enthusiasm at all. She stood up, grabbing her book. The conversation hung between them, unfinished, like a sentence missing its period. She should leave, they both should but she didn't want to and that was the problem.

"Curfew," she said, her voice flat. "Maybe...we should go."

Word count: 217

@Rowan Vexeley

Hex code: #1b3b64