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Meursault remembers these sensations somewhat fondly: a perfectly warm sun, like a comforting blanket enveloping his skin; glistening with a tan and salty perspiration from the seaside air. The day was young, and the waters clear—the cool air seeping between his teeth, a buzzing ringing in his ears as he sipped from a glass of neat whiskey. The seafoam rose and rolled, in moving white mounds. He let the waters sink his feet into the sand, feeling the grainy warmth between his toes.
He swam for a couple hours, and walked back to Raymond’s beach house when noon came and had lunch in silence. He didn’t feel like smoking out on the patio after his drink. By evening, he was feeling a little restless to be sitting for so long. Even though Meursault felt slightly drowsy, he decided to take a brisk walk for his stomach. Where at the edge of the beach there was an extension of a wooden bridge structure out wherein one could look out into the vast ocean. At sunset, the warm golden ball of light dipped down into the sea, melting, spilling right onto the cool blue. He thought it was very relaxing. On Saturdays, it would be his spot. But not this Saturday.
Meursault held his hand up to block the early evening rays that seeped through the leaves of the forests like an unfinished puzzle. The warmth settled on the back of his palm, his eyelids half-closing to block out most of the light. Unable to discern the sandy path properly, he was beginning to feel very hot and uncomfortable. Specks of dust floated in the glimmering light, he took a shortcut down the forest, leaving behind a trail of size seven footsteps in the wet mud.
In his peripheral vision, there was a black, reddish-brown blur. He thought it might’ve been another young couple.
He was wrong; once the sun had descended further, a mandarin sky draping over it, he could observe it better: it was a blonde woman, standing so far off the edge he thought she might’ve fallen off at any moment. Meursault presumed her to be lost, if not lost in her own gaze: she stared into nothing but the Sun. Her face was turned, so he couldn’t tell if she was sad, angry or happy. Most people at the beach were happy in a miserable way. Regardless, he didn’t exactly own the spot, so he turned on his heel.
A cold breath shuddered down his neck. He couldn’t figure out why, but he turned his head back. The girl was standing in front of him, her petite stature touching the top of his shoulder.
Her ruby-red eyes glistened with a light sparkle. It must have been from the sun, he thinks. Up close, he noticed that she had been uncomfortably close to him, drinking in his presence. It was still hot out, but she didn’t wear any shoes, her pinkish feet stretched out on the bare planks. She was clad in an article of strange regal clothing, torn at the sides, dirtied and bloodied. He wanted to ask, but decided against it.
“There are rusty nails not fully hammered in the planks. Be careful.” He pointed out. She didn’t answer, and Meursault wasn’t one to make further dull conversation.
They both watched the sun dip into the frothy, emerald waves. Now the sky was a watercolour splash of mauve, azure and a pale pink that reminded him of the trimmed roses at his Mother’s home. They smelled off, always a little browned on the tips of the petals. It was months ago; the last time he came on his free Saturday.
“Do you believe we can defy our nature? Something innate and material, the blood and the flesh.” The stranger spoke, in a colourful accent. He didn’t recognize it.
It was an abrupt question. He paused for a moment, rubbing sweat off his chin with his thumb. Meursault told her yes, but he didn’t really believe it himself. Truthfully, he’s never thought much about it, as he had no reason to contemplate whether or not he could defy his own human nature. Sure, he needed to eat, sleep, and drink like a normal human, and choose to not do so if he really wanted to do so, but he had no reason to go against it. He wanted to tell her not to trouble herself with these kinds of questions, but it would be overstepping a boundary, and quite a foolish thing to say to a stranger.
“The sun,” Her eyes turned into the far distance, watching the waves roll. The yellow light shone against her carmine irises. “Blinding into oblivion. To blind yourself so that you may walk a new path. Tell me, if you fell in love with the sun, what would you do?”
He told her he didn’t follow.
“I would swim to her. It didn’t matter if my wings melted, all I could gaze into is the Sun.”
Meursault didn’t respond.
“Suppose everyone laughed at you for the effort. Suppose you burned brightly into a fistful of flames before you touched her. Suppose it was your punishment for wanting to defy your mortal nature. The Sun punished you and your kind, by scorching the earth with a great fire, causing a never ending agony to your fellow man. What did it all mean, in the end? Your intentions?”
He thought for a while.
“That it was an impossible goal to achieve, and you willingly damned yourself and mankind to suffer by your decision.”
“Yet you still dreamt.” She muttered quietly to herself, and walked back out to the far edge again, the planks creaking under her every step. He followed her in a hypnotic trance, his shirt collar feeling uncomfortably stiff against the evening sea wind.
“You’re injured.” He touched the side of her arm, a bleeding gash streaked through it. She retracted it immediately, and hissed at him. It was frosty: her blood ran cooler than ice. “I’ll bandage it up for you back at the house.” Meursault wasn’t sure why he offered, but he did anyway, even if it meant sacrificing his supper at Raymond’s and an extra bus fare. It would probably not offend him if he mentioned a woman in the matter.
To his surprise, she took his hand.
She was pretty, in a way he would imagine the moon to look, up close: a reflection of the Sun’s light, casted in a hungry sombre glow, wanting. That it watched, and watched as centuries passed, wars raged, saying nothing. Her eyes, a setting bloody sun. Sometimes it was an eclipse. He felt an urge to kiss her.
He leaned down, and she turned. Their lips met, but only briefly.
That night, he spent it restless. Heat that swelled up inside his body poured and spilled into a refreshing coolness, reaching a thermal equilibrium.
In the morning, his sheets were empty, save for himself and his weight, but there was a hollow weight, a ghastly apparition of what used to be there. Like the moon, she disappeared when the sun rose.
That was years ago; now it has changed, and it didn’t matter too much. The times had changed, the prices gone higher, the buildings grew taller, the skies dimming darker, Mother died — but it could have been today, or yesterday, that everything swept the world in a continuous tide: and he stood there watching it unfold. The waters had grown muddier, the sand coarser. The bridge was broken down into a pile of rubble, home to various aquatic life, sticking out from beyond the waters. He could no longer discern the glisten of the sun in its reflection.
To his left, a loud voice chirped at him.
“Señor Meursault! Thou’st must bask in the invigorating waters here!”
Meursault turned his head to the ocean. Don Quixote, one of his co-workers, was bathing in the sea, in a white frilly two-piece, that pushed up her tiny breasts. Staring at her neck in the distance, he felt the memory rush in: a waning crescent red mark dug into the pale moon crater. Pain, pleasure washing in tides. His knees against the sheets, staring down flaming orbs that lit up the darkest corners of the room.
She smiled and waved at him, grinning from ear to ear.
He watched her eyes, a misty yellow. A generator-like electric burning. A false sun.
Meursault moved his arms, pulsating through the waves of the ocean, dipping his head beyond the green foam, wondering if sunset would come.