I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

From The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus.

He left the coffee shop as it started to rain. Clutching his files tightly under his arm— heavier, it seemed than how he had remembered— he darted across the street to the foot of the bridge in order to find shelter from a downpour which had all afternoon been threatening to fall. He cursed under his breath as his manila envelopes were spattered with water.

Why the hell did I park the car on the other side, he thought. Stupid.

He lingered a moment over the railing, watching as the pavement began to turn from a dusty gray to a shiny black, as vehicles below sped by, leaving the sound of splashing water crushed between tire and concrete. Immediately, he was mesmerized by the rhythmic rush of life that happened beneath his feet, and wondered what it was like to actually have somewhere to go. And then, as though by instinct, the thought of mortality again flashed in his mind, as though the pavement below were some sordid salvation. He dismissed the thought with a cynical snicker.

You won't get off that easy, he thought. He remebered what it was again that the philosopher said: “It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm— this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the ‘why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.”

He knew that it was that this why which stared at him straight from the pavement, a why which he did not quite now know the answer. At least not yet.

The urgency of his tasks, however, called him back to himself, so that he knew that what time he had to consider these matters of meaning were circumscribed by the ring he wore on his finger, and the promise that he would be home. And so, as though by some supernatural force, he set his envelopes in order again, tucking them tightly beneath his jacket, trudging across the bridge, finally, to the other side.

He got off the bridge, into the rain, and he knew that the world was as it should be— it was how he had found it coming up the bridge, and how he knew he would find it coming down. Life sucks, he told himself. But all is well.