
The trigger gave. I felt the underside of the polished butt and it was there, in that sharp but deafening noise, that it all started. I shook off the sweat and the sun. I realised that I’d destroyed the balance of the day and the perfect silence of this beach where I’d been happy. And I fired four more times at a lifeless body and the bullets sank in without leaving a mark. And it was like giving four sharp knocks at the door of unhappiness.

1942


TO BE FILED UNDER
albert camus · beach · bullets · death · existentialism · guns · killing an arab · l'etranger · murder · silence · sun · sweat · the cure · the outsider · the stranger · unhappiness






