There she was picking rocks from the ground, examining them, and choosing the ones that were fit to be her final companions.

I stood in the shadows of a tree watching Virginia as her hands felt the heaviness of every single rock she picked up. Her concentration on such a task didn’t put me off. I understand her. I understand what she is doing, and maybe it’s time for me to pick my own rocks.

I walked over to her just as she was dipping her fingertips into the water of River Ouse. She stared at the ripples it made, not paying attention to the stranger sitting down beside her.

“The weather is beautiful today, isn’t it?” I heard her soft voice, which seemed so dim, as if it were already saying goodbye.

“Is life beautiful?” I started picking my own rocks, waiting for her answer.

“Of course. Life is the most beautiful thing out there. It’s why we write, paint, dance, and sing. "It is everything,” she picked up more rocks. A large one in particular caught her eye, and she took it almost enthusiastically.

“Then why are you, why are we here ending it?” I asked her, and this time my entire attention was on her.

“We are ending life because it’s too beautiful for us to comprehend. The beauty of life is a blessing to many and a curse to some, and we were the unfortunate ones. Nothing can replace the beauty of life, except the beauty of death, when all the noise ceases. When all the voices leave.”

“How can we be sure that silence would be our companion in the other life?”

“Well, you can’t,” she smiled sadly like she wished she wasn’t saying these words. “You can never be sure of anything with life. You can’t be sure if your love would be enough to save you. You can’t be sure if tomorrow would be better. You can’t be sure that after death anything comes. We simply have to live and die in ignorance.”

She had a pile of rocks next to her, and she carefully picked them up and put each one in the right pocket of her brown coat.

“Do you love the color brown?”

“I have lost my capability to know if I love anything. The only thing, the only one I still know that I love, is Leonard. I just wrote to him my final piece. I told him, ‘I’m certain I’m going mad again,’ and ‘I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.’ Aren’t they a good beginning and end?” Her eyes met mine like she was waiting for my assurance, for my approval.

“They are as good as any beginning and end could be, but how can you be certain that you are going mad again?” I asked her as my eyes scanned how her hair was well kept.

“Madness isn’t in the appearance, my dear. It lies within us, it thrives inside us, and mine is alive and well. It’s respectful; my madness is, for it sometimes gives me the choice of keeping it inside me. It gave me the chance to kiss Leonard goodbye today without letting him know that it was the final kiss, that I slipped my final piece of writing in the pocket of his coat. When madness is this kind, you have to see some beauty in it, for kindness is so expensive these days. Are you mad?”

“I am. Don’t you see me picking rocks with you?” I asked.

She waved me off. “You don’t need to be mad to pick rocks.”

“But you need to be mad to put them into your pockets,” I said just as I finished putting my own pile of rocks into one of my pockets.

"This", she pointed at the river like she was pointing at death, “isn’t madness. "It is the sanest thing in the world to know when to put an end to life, just like it is the most beautiful thing to know when to end a piece of writing.”

“I don’t think I agree with you,” I whispered as I started working on my second, and final, pile of rocks.

“Life is about disagreements. It would be boring if we always agreed with what everyone has to say. Sometimes you need to hate the opinions of others. It’s healthy.”

“I feel like this is an insane conversation,” I pointed at our surroundings to let her know how crazy it is to share such a conversation before ending it all.

“It isn’t. If it was insane, I wouldn’t be talking to you. It’s one of the sanest things I have ever done. I’m choosing the conversation that comes at the end of my life, and what is better way to spend it than to admire the beauty of life one final time?”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“And maybe I’m wrong. We will know in the water if it was a satisfying end,” she already finished her second pile of rocks and waited for me to finish mine.

“So there is no madness?”

“There is to an extent some madness or else we wouldn’t be here. But I do believe that madness exists everywhere around us, but some can survive, and others,” she pointed at herself and me, “can’t. The voices are getting louder now. Keep talking till the end.”

“So what’s your favourite colour?"

“Anything but brown,” she looked down on her coat as if it was the ugliest thing to see before dying, and then she looked at the river like it was the most beautiful thing to see before dying.

“Will the voices calm down?”

“We can only know if we try,” she held out her hand and took mine as we walked together toward the river, toward the end.

“What is your favourite colour?" She asked me as our feet started to get wet.

I looked down at my blue coat. “Anything but blue.”

I looked back at the river at the same time as she did because I wanted to choose how my end looked.

I don’t think two people could have been happier than we were at this moment.