The Backrooms

Stillness. A disembodied woman’s voice, faint, obstructed by distance. Maman. She speaks, but there is merely the vague impression of words, crackling like radio static, drowning in a sea of noise. Not that it is at all surprising—she is, after all, a couple of realities away. Obscured by the planes and the spaces that intersect and fold, then twist and collapse in on themselves, destructively, violently, crashing down—

Jean Meier wakes up. His head still feels distant, like it’s in the wrong place—not that he thinks there is a truly "right" place, not that he thinks he belongs anywhere. No, But he’s alive, and right now alive feels right, if nothing else. When his selves are no longer scattered from his slumber, the soft hum of Maman’s voice slips from the back of his mind. Now all that remains is white noise.

Jean’s teeth chatter as the spikes of cold prick his frail body. With numbing fingers, he buttons up his uniform. It’s an old thing, worn and dirty, personally given to him by the Gouverneur. Judging by its state, it seemed like it had been through a fair amount of use. To Jean, it looks like a military uniform that could have been from the 1940s, although without any sort of insignia, there was not much else to infer as to who it could have previously belonged to, if it belonged to anyone at all. Like the rest of the oddities he’s encountered, perhaps it came from nowhere in particular; it was just simply there. How nice. He wishes his whole existence was that simple for him.

Exiting the shack—he’d never find it in himself to call the rotten thing home—he makes his way southbound towards the center of the modest village, where the townspeople gather every morning. A mere seven people are present by the time he gets there, but within only a few minutes of waiting in the cold, the square becomes packed. The crowd has become gloomy lately, and the usual chatter has been replaced with defeated silence. Jean recalls the first year, warm, lively, the fields greener than he’s ever seen, and the men and women alike all brimming with pride. Oh, long live our great Gouverneur!

All heads turn towards Georges Bonnot. His towering stature is perched atop a wooden soapbox, the crate looking almost comically small under his steel-toed boots. Our Great Gouverneur! For Fraternity and Unity! The words echo only in Jean’s mind, as around him the crowd remains silent and shivering. He finds himself a little disappointed. How weak-willed of them.

“Good morning, people of Nouvelle-Flandre,” the Gouverneur’s voice booms, “Today is the fifteenth of Pluviôse.”

A small silence. Jean thinks he can see Bonnot nearly open his mouth to say something, but stops himself.

“There is no news today. Men and women, proceed to your stations. A productive day of work is ahead of us. For Fraternity and—”

“What about us, the people, starving?” a woman’s shrill voice interrupts, cutting through the air like an arrow. “I can barely feed my son two meals a day. How is Nouvelle-Flandre going to continue if our future generations go hungry?”

The crowd murmurs. The Gouverneur narrows his icy blue eyes.

“I understand your concerns… The stock for this cold season is, unfortunately, running thin. There is little to be done about it, we have tried to distribute it as fairly as possible, and according to the calculations they should have lasted us the whole winter, but…” another pause, his piercing gaze growing more intense, “… perhaps, if it weren’t for a certain few weak, shameful, disgusting traitors—those that steal the rations of their fellows, that take more than what they deserve—your son would not have had to go hungry.”

Before the woman can protest, the Great and Righteous Gouverneur retreats to his home. Just a small disruption, a bump in the road. Routine calls. Back to work we go!

The crowd disperses with a buzz of discontentment mixed with resignation.

Jean Meier heads north. Further down the gravel path, past his shack, a strip of dirt branches off into a field. A fence, or what remains of one surrounds the area, its planks barely keeping together. He picks up a nearby bucket and a towel and with the other hand pushes the fence gate open with a creak, then half-shuts it behind him. In the center of the field stands a well, which he uses to collect half a bucketful of water. Then he heads over to his cows.

It was during the beginning of Prairial last year that Bonnot put him to work with the cattle. Giant, slow and smelly creatures. He couldn’t stand them at first, not that it’s any fault of the poor things, he’d never as much as stepped foot on a farm before at that point. The idea of stomping all over the fields that they’d excrete on, touching their fly-swarmed coats with his bare hands, squeezing the milk directly from their pink, fleshy udders, it was all repulsive to him. Though after months of constant exposure, he’s grown used to it. Fond, even, he regrets to admit.

Back then, they were thirteen in total—seven females, three males and three calves, all female. Jean can remember all their names. Now only two remain. Although the cows themselves were not inclined to wander past the pathetic fencing, it made things convenient for robbers in the night, who would lead the poor creatures away to be slaughtered. Yes, it is a truth most vile, that there are cow-stealers among the townspeople.

“Morning, Muguet, did you sleep well?” his palm glides over the cow’s back. “The cold is ending soon, I’m sure we are both looking forward to it, hm?”

Muguet huffs and flaps her ears. Jean’s eyebrow twitches, and he flushes a little out of self-awareness, his frostbitten ears turning a deeper shade of pink; my, look at our petit paysan, talking to his cows as if they’re people. Not that he’s ever talked to another person that way.

The other one, a calf, three weeks old, unsteadily saunters over to its mother. Jean squats down.

“Hey, you left some for the rest of us, right?” he gives the little one a quick smile, maybe more so out of embarrassment at himself than fondness for the thing. Maybe a little of both. Deciding not to dwell on it, he dips his towel into the cold bucket water, and starts wiping down the udders of the cow, who swishes its tail in response.

Milking is difficult when he can hardly feel his fingertips, but he’s done it enough times by now that he can get it over with almost as quickly as he would have in warmer weather. With the bucket now full of milk, he stands up and pats the cow on its side. “I’ll see you later, Muguet, Mousse.”

From underneath its mother, the little calf looks up at him with its beady black eyes.

---

When Jean returns for the evening milking, only one is left. Oh, putain.

Briefly, he scans the perimeter for any traces of the calf, mostly to make sure that he hadn’t just missed it walking in. He can’t say he is being particularly thorough with the search, not that he is unbothered by the disappearance, rather, he doesn’t quite know what he’s looking for. It’s unlike that time a few months back when he found splotches of dark, dried blood on the ground with the unmistakable smell of death in the air. You would be a fool to leave such glaring evidence as a trail of blood, and yet there it was, the remains of a dead cow dragged across the fields to be chopped into pieces. What surprises him about this current predicament is that the perpetrator had acted in broad daylight, he realizes it is the first time a cow had been stolen between the interval of the morning and evening milkings.

How many can a small calf even feed? Jean walks back towards the village center with a heavy bucket of milk and an equally heavy mind. He’ll go and tell the Gouverneur, who will conduct a search in one, maybe two days, and the vile thief will turn up when he fails to explain the stench of rot that pervades his cellar. Of course, that would do little to ease his mind, even when Bonnot takes the culprit to a locked shed, puts a hammer in Jean’s hand and tells him in his ear to go to town. What’s gone is gone. The first few times his cows were taken from him, he was upset, of course, but it wasn't until the last bull was killed—destroying any chance of the cows repopulating—that he felt his mind truly break. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea that someone could be so short-sighted, so inconsiderate, so stupid, that he’ll doom everyone including himself.

That’s why Jean has never made nice with the locals. Around him, there’s always mindless, thoughtless husks, every man is a carbon copy of the last, and all these people know is to act on their animalistic emotions. They’re all sheep, the lot of them. Jean here, you see, never really did buy into Bonnot’s ideology, his chauvinistic beliefs and his vague promises of prosperity and the Perfect Society. He wouldn’t put his faith into something so naive, and that’s what makes him different from the rest of the townsfolk. He's sure that Bonnot realizes that as well, and perhaps that’s why he treats Jean more so as an intellectual equal. Indeed, someone who recognizes an actual thinker.

“I hear you.”

The Gouverneur exhales a cloud of smoke. His face is framed by a five o’clock shadow, with wrinkles settling deep in his cheeks and brows. He has deep, deep eyebags, and although Jean’s never seen him without bloodshot eyes—must be some kind of medical condition—they look darker than usual, like little redcurrants. Jean knows that there’s been a lot of complaints from the folks as of recent, and it’s been piling up on the man. Ungrateful bastards, the lot of them.

“I’ll send some men to check tomorrow. I trust you to deal with the culprit as you see fit. Is that all?”

Jean is ever so slightly taken aback by the curt dismissal.

“Well—no, I mean—yes, that’s all. Thank you, Gouverneur.”

He leaves the cabin and is greeted by a gust of icy wind. His teeth chatter. Hastily, he heads back to his shack. Another shitty day. Another horrible night’s rest for Jean Meier.

Petit-Jean wakes up. Oh dear, it appears our little prince has overslept again! He leaps out of bed and changes out of his striped pajamas. It’s cold today, so he puts on a purplish-burgundy wool sweater, knit by Maman herself, and a thick dark blue jacket. Past his bedroom door, faintly, is the smell of something sweet, something loving. Maman’s splendid cooking. He hurries towards the kitchen.

On the table is his breakfast, still smoking. He looks around. Maman? Papa? Papa must’ve gone to work. Jean had better hurry and eat lest he be late for school. After finishing his meal, he heads for the door, fumbling to get his boots on.

“Don’t forget your scarf, mon chou.”

Maman! Jean whips his head towards her voice. He drops his boot, and it bounces once off the wooden floor.

Standing there in the foyer, looking straight at him with those black, beady eyes, is a cow.

Jean wakes up. His head hurts. It’s still pitch black outside. He decides to go for a walk despite the freezing cold. He’s been through worse.

He gets lost in his own thoughts for a while, wondering what will become of Nouvelle-Flandre. They’re on the precipice of being completely doomed, and it’s their fault. The soil was unfit to grow anything. Not long after that first spring, anything they tried to grow would rot as soon as it was plucked off its branch into their hands. The cows were all they had for the winter. Now all of it is gone.

Jean finds himself on the rough cobblestone street of the town square, when he hears a voice somewhere nearby. Two voices. A trail of smoke disperses into the morning air. With silent footsteps he peeks around the corner of the Gouverneur's house and sees Bonnot himself in a conversation with Frank Albagnac. Right, Frank Albagnac, the completely unnoteworthy washerman. The Gouverneur’s eyes look softer, and Jean swears he can see hints of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Jean Meier tries to pry his eyes away. What is this? A feeling? Oh dear. A horrible, horrible new emotion is being introduced to our sweet Jean. It’s one that reminds him of the time his coworker earned a promotion to the head of the section for doing less work than him, or when he saw his childhood sweetheart with that boy that pushed him around and called him a queer. Jean knows how completely irrational it is, this terrible jealousy. Frank is a nobody, he’d tell himself. He’s sure most of Bonnot’s attention is spent on him, not Frank. Jean knows how to make the Gouverneur proud, he swears it.

Jean doesn’t know how long he stands there for, but Frank eventually leaves as the slightest hint of sun emerges in the distance. He waits for a little bit longer so as to not seem suspicious, then goes up to Bonnot. The Gouverneur doesn’t say anything but acknowledges him with a nod and a puff of his cigar. Jean doesn’t really know what to say, either.

“Winter ends soon.” The words come awkwardly out of Jean’s mouth.

Bonnot nods again.

Jean clears his throat. “It’s good, I mean, we could regrow our crops and feed the villagers soon. And it won’t be so cold anymore, that's good.”

“I prefer the cold. Do you know why?” Bonnot puts out his cigar. “Heat builds tolerance in a man. The cold breaks him.”

“And between the two, the stronger man is the one who conquers the cold.”

Bonnot makes eye contact with him again. “You understand. Good.”

Although a frown is permanently etched into his face, Jean can tell from the minutiae that this is one of approval. Pride blooms in his chest.

As Bonnot turns to leave, Jean speaks up. “The thief. I hope we catch him today.”

“Thief?”

“The cow-stealer.”

Bonnot raises a brow. “What are you talking about? One of your cows was stolen again?”

“Well… you know, I mentioned it to you yesterday,” Jean says with a hint of disappointment, “The calf, he was stolen while I was working.”

“Are you sure? You checked this morning? Also, I don’t recall you mentioning that, not yesterday.”

“I checked yesterday and I told you in the evening.”

Gouverneur Bonnot studies him, looks him up and down. “Meier, I’m not sure what you are trying to do.”

Jean raises his voice, “I’m not trying to do anything. I’m telling you—there’s been a theft, I’m absolutely certain I told you, I’m not lying. Why would you even think—”

“Watch your tone,” Bonnot answers coldly. “You say there’s been a theft. You know what happens to thieves. I don’t punish people without reason, so if you’re trying to get someone in trouble because of some personal business that has nothing to do with me, all the while making up a story as an excuse—”

“I’m not making it up!”

“All the while making up a story as an excuse,” he repeats, “you will regret it, Meier. I’m warning you now.”

Jean can’t respond. He’s scared he might cry, which is the last thing he needs right now. He feels humiliated; the way Bonnot is reproaching him is convincing him that, despite what his memories say, the Gouverneur may be right. His reality is the only possible one that is allowed to exist.

Jean does not attend the morning speech. He heads straight to the pasture.

Muguet paces around restlessly, impatient to be milked. Jean approaches her, bucket in hand, and strokes her from cheek to neck. He makes a shushing noise to soothe her before crouching down and placing the bucket under her.

Just then, something small pokes its head around the well in the center of the field. It trots over to Jean.

Jean is petrified. Oh, this cannot be. He should be relieved to see the calf, but he can only think of his earlier exchange with the Gouverneur. The embarrassment violently hits him. He starts sweating in the sub-zero degree weather, his face hot and throat constricted, then tries to reach out to touch Mousse with shaky, pale fingers.

He supposes he won’t be able to face Gouverneur Bonnot for a while. A very, very long while. He finishes the milking and heads to work, does whatever he needs to do to keep his mind off of it. Occupies himself with menial tasks so he can avoid thinking. Drops the milk off at the cheesemaker’s. Tills the soil. Searches the grounds for anything comestible. Counts the produce. Calculates the best distribution for the thinning food ration. Writes everything down in a neat little report to give to the Gouverneur. Lives to work and works to live.

In the evening, the calf is gone again. Jean searches the area more thoroughly this time so he’s sure, more sure than he’s ever been sure of anything else in his life. Mousse is nowhere to be found. He double checks, triple checks, but every nook and cranny turns up nothing. It’s wrong, he shouldn’t feel relieved, but he is, and with that comes an aching sense of guilt. But as long as Bonnot clears up his suspicions of him lying, he can rest easier.

Approaching Bonnot’s residence, Jean gets cold feet. Well, everything is cold. In a manner that almost seems rehearsed, he knocks, opens the door, shuts it, slips the report on top of a leather-bound binder, all the while Bonnot sits in his office chair, cigar in his mouth, watching, studying Jean with those bloodshot eyes; Jean can tell he’s waiting for him to speak. He wants to speak. He can’t. He leaves.

Jean Meier wakes up. He ignores the strange tingling in his spine. The world feels half-real.

He thinks about a time when he was alone, and not lonely. He always preferred being alone so he could have the time and space to think. He never did like when people described him as being a poor, lonely boy and looked at him with those eyes that he hated, full of pity. He was alone in a crowd, in a classroom, in an apartment building full of people, on the beach, in the woods, but never in his dreams, he was never lonely. He’ll never admit it out loud, but when asked who his best friend was, he’d immediately think of Maman. Now he can’t bear to imagine her.

As for his father, Jean confesses that he rarely thinks of him, but there’s always been a Papa-shaped hole in his life. He’s moved on from his old man’s death, he really has. Unlike many things, he doesn’t blame himself for it. He remembers him and Maman crying, mother and son embracing one another, frail and cold. It’s just a fragment of a memory though, he remembers the picture but forgets what he was feeling back then. All he knows is that those couple of days felt completely unreal.

---

Jean attends the morning assembly.

“Good morning, people of Nouvelle-Flandre. Today is the fifteenth of Pluviôse.”

What? Jean’s hair stands up on its ends. There was no mistake, he just said fifteen, fifteen! The report he wrote yesterday was for the fifteenth. He questioned it when he saw it yesterday; was it or was it not that the previous day, too, was the fifteenth? But then chalked it up as his own miscounting. Did Bonnot also say fifteen at that morning assembly? His thoughts are interrupted by a shrill woman’s voice.

“What about us, the people, starving? I can barely feed my son two meals a day. How is Nouvelle-Flandre going to continue if our future generations go hungry?”

Like a broken record.

Jean Meier feels sick. His blood drums in his ears. He briskly walks away, the walk turning into a jog, until he reaches the pasture. He tries to catch his breath, white clouds dispersing in the crisp air.

Sure enough, the mother cow and the calf are standing there, peaceful, unaware.

---

The cowbell sounds a hollow clang as Jean ties the rope it is attached to around Mousse’s neck. Is this really his solution? He doubts he’d even be able to hear it from such a distance as he’s working, but he can’t think of anything else that doesn’t involve him abandoning his station. It will hardly do anything to prevent the stealing, but at least it will prove that he is stuck in a repeating time cycle once he checks the next day. He sighs to himself. Perhaps the Gouverneur will know what to do.

He thinks some more and decides that it is not the best decision to go to Bonnot. Considering their argument yesterday, he has no idea how he could possibly convince Bonnot to believe him. Why would he be aware of a theft before it happens? He needs concrete evidence. If he told him that he was stuck repeating the day over and over, he’d be exiled for having gone mentally insane.

Maybe Jean is purposefully ignoring it, the bigger problem at hand. He knows his mind will break, so he avoids thinking about the possibility that this day will never end. It’s an irrational thing, really, to try and tie the two occurrences together neatly and confidently say they are connected, but it’s easier. Despite it being near unprovable, Jean is certain the calf has something to do with the temporal paradox he’s in. Truth be told, he has no other choice but to believe so.

And so Jean Meier goes to work. Although he’s not as efficient as he usually is. Not with everything and nothing drilling through his mind.

When he returns, the calf is gone. Better luck tomorrow.

Jean Meier wakes up. His neck aches from lying down wrong.

“Good morning, people of Nouvelle-Flandre. Today is the fifteenth of Pluviôse.”

He watches the morning assembly replay again. He wishes this was all just a very long dream. Though, if it were indeed a dream, he wouldn’t be feeling so lonely. He bathes in the numbness, in the television static, blissfully ignorant. He doesn’t dare poke his head out.

“Gouverneur,” Jean knocks on Bonnot’s door, “It’s me, there’s something I’d like to discuss.”

He enters after hearing a faint come in, and is immediately hit by the familiar earthy, bitter smell of cigar smoke. Sharp blue eyes point at him like a blade to his throat. He gets the sense that one wrong move, and it’s over for him.

“There’s been a concern recently, with the townspeople getting desperate for rations and whatnot. I’m worried about the things people do when they get desperate, you see. They get selfish and inconsiderate and often end up dragging others down in their lunacy. I’m sure you understand.”

Bonnot keeps his gaze pinned on Jean. He leans back in his chair.

“What I’m worried about—and it may seem silly, but it is important to me—are my cows. It’s happened a handful of times before, as you know, there've been people who steal or slaughter my cows while I’m away.” Jean Meier wipes a bead of sweat off his forehead. “It would be a great help if there were men stationed to watch over them, to make sure no one acts on impulse. This is the biggest favor I will ask you, Gouverneur, and I’ll repay you any way you need.”

“Do you think I have an infinite supply of men?”

“It’ll be for just one day! Just for one day, that’s all I ask.”

Bonnot raises a brow. “And why is that? Is there something you aren’t telling me, Meier?”

Oh dear, he’s onto him. Think on your feet, Jean. You’ve done this before, in some vague, watery, bitter past, you have a talent for convincing people, don’t you? “I… I’ve been threatened. Last night. They slipped me a note.”

“You should have started with that. I’m guessing you don’t happen to know by whom?”

“No, sir… though, I suspect, and pardon me, but it’s possible it could have been…you know.”

“The Witch.”

“Precisely.”

Bonnot thinks for a moment. “Meier, I’ll send two men. You have my permission today after your duties to interrogate that woman with whatever means you see fit. My men will accompany you. Keep her alive.”

“That’s—I question the necessity of that—”

“Grave problems require grave solutions. You are dismissed.”

---

Off the beaten path, around half a lieue northeast of Nouvelle-Flandre, stands a lone house. The only souls residing in it are the old couple. They are an elusive pair, rarely ever seen by the villagers. As a result, they have developed a sort of mythic status as rumors circulate about their ability to self-sustain; with some believing they have doomed the village with a sort of curse that causes their soil to stop yielding and their crops to spoil. This is how the old woman had earned, among the villagers, the forbidding nickname, ‘The Witch’. Jean, of course, does not buy into this spiritual, make-believe nonsense. He’s sure the Gouverneur doesn’t either, though he certainly does not mind the circulation of such rumors. Still, the couple are individuals to watch out for.

Earlier, when Jean had returned to the pasture, Mousse was once again nowhere to be found. The men on duty said they had seen and heard nothing. Jean was able to convince them to skip out on accompanying him to the Witch’s house, by confessing that he had no intentions to physically harm anyone, that he couldn’t even if he wanted to. Claims that no matter how much it disappoints the Gouverneur, a man like him could never lift a hand against the elderly. This is, of course, a lie; for Bonnot’s approval, Jean would do just about anything.

Jean knocks on the quaint wooden door.

“Who is it?”

“I’m from the village, I need your help. No one knows that I’m here.”

A long silence. Just as Jean thinks he won’t get an answer, the door cracks open.

“Oh, you’re that skinny one. Quick, come inside.”

The Witch shuts the door behind him.

The interior of the house takes Jean by surprise. The living room is adorned with all kinds of decorations and memorabilia placed on top of carved wood cabinets, the armchairs appear vintage and worn with use, and a fur rug sprawls across the floor. Next to it is a lit fireplace, mon dieu! Is there anything as exquisite as this right now? He could stay here forever.

“Sit. Would you like some warm water?”

“I’m alright…” Jean swallows, still taking in the decor. Is that a television set? How did they get their hands on one?

“My dear René’s in the other room right now, he doesn’t take well with visitors. It has certainly been a while since we’ve had anyone over, though—anyone with good intentions that is. How has the town been faring over the winter?”

Oh dear. Jean really does not like small talk. “Um, we’re doing alright. We’re going to make it.”

“That’s good, I don’t have any doubt that you will become rich and prosperous soon,” the old woman says, smiling warmly, “You’re going to make something beautiful.”

“Right, yes… Um, listen, I’ve been having some troubles.”

“Oh? What’s wrong, dear?”

Jean decides to tell the old hermit about everything—the soil’s inability to yield crops, the calf and its mysterious disappearance, even the time loop. Instead of looking at him like he’s gone mad, the woman listens attentively, nodding along to his every word, her eyebrows arching in intrigue with each oddity he describes. When’s the last time Jean felt something like this? After his monologue, the room is silent, words hanging heavy in the air.

“This is a predicament indeed… Well, first off, I can assure you that neither René nor myself have anything to do with the poor soil. We have nothing against you building your settlements here, this area doesn’t belong to anyone, after all.” The woman takes a sip from her mug.

She continues, “Neither do we have any part in your… cow situation. This is all very new to me. Tell me…” she trails off, waiting for a name.

“Jean.”

“Tell me, Jean, do you believe it’s possible that your Mousse is phasing through reality?”

“What do you mean?”

The woman stands up.

“You see this thing?” she asks, gesturing to the television set, “We never had any machine like this, it just suddenly appeared one day. And it’s not the only time this has happened, we have a few odd things scrambled around the house. It’s the same when you people got here too, you all appeared out of thin air.”

Right, that’s what she means. It’s whatever happened that caused our poor Jean to end up here in the first place. In those dreary, brightly lit, empty rooms.

She continues, “But Jean, your repeating day situation really just has me stumped… I’m probably too old to understand any of this. I don’t know how a thing like that can be possible. Would it mean that everyone else is also repeating their days, but you are the only one that knows about it? Anyway, I… I’m sorry I couldn’t be of much help.”

“No—no, this was good. I’m glad I talked to you. I’ll be off now.” Jean turns to leave. “Actually, I didn’t catch your name…”

“Oh, how rude of me! It’s Marie-Rose. Be safe on your way back now, petit-Jean.”

---

Jean lays in bed, completely awake. Was she right that this time paradox was happening to everyone? And they just kept forgetting about it each day? Or another possibility: When he goes to sleep, there is a Jean that makes it to tomorrow and there is a Jean that is left behind every day. If we add Mousse into the equation, then perhaps it is him that carries each Jean to tomorrow? They must be connected somehow. If every day that Mousse is with him means another day for Jean, then Mousse’s death must mean that everything ends. What would Jean do, knowing this? Our Jean, with his bright mind, forms a dreadful theory. What if there was another Jean out there, stuck in the same predicament as him, who found his way into this Jean’s world and took his cow so he could escape the horrific cycle?

But too much thinking in circles and spirals fatigues the brain, and Jean eventually falls asleep.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Jean wakes up. The air is heavy and stale. He opens his eyes to see a cow beside his bed. He gently pushes its head aside to reach for the alarm clock.

He climbs out of bed and looks around. His once spacious bedroom, now cramped, is occupied by at least five or six cows. A tail brushes by his face, and he swats it away. He maneuvers his way in between the gaps to get to the door.

Two more cows stand in the hall. He pats one on the back to get it to move out of his way. He opens the bathroom door, and inside the bathtub stands another cow. It huffs at him. He checks his reflection in the mirror, but it’s too fogged up to see anything. He brushes his teeth, decides it’s better to skip out on the shower or to get changed. He’ll just stay home today, it feels like a day off.

He makes his way downstairs to the kitchen, which is mostly obscured by cows, packed together like sardines. Their black and white coats blend into one another in a dizzying array, making it impossible to tell head from hind. With nowhere to move, the poor things bump into the furniture and into each other and huff and moo. Jean weaves his way through the herd and takes a mug from the cupboard. He makes himself some watery, bitter, barely lukewarm coffee. He pushes his way between the hefty creatures towards the living room, sits down on his couch, then realizes he cannot see the TV. He supposes he’ll just sleep the day away.

Jean Meier wakes up. He wishes he didn’t.

“Good morning, people of Nouvelle-Flandre. Today is the fifteenth of Pluviôse.”

As wrong as it feels, he decides not to show up at work. He’ll see for himself what happens to his calf. At the back of his mind, there remains a deeply implanted, irrational fear: What if today is when the loop ends, and whatever wrongs he’s done today under the impression of them lacking any consequences ends up being remembered by everyone?

After milking Muguet, he ties the rusty cowbell around Mousse’s neck and pats him on the head. He lays down on the grass on his back—doesn’t matter anymore if it’s dirty. At his side, Muguet is also resting on her side. She curiously looks at him. Mousse circles them for a bit until he returns to Jean’s side as well. Jean idly pets the calf as he stares at the sky, indifferent, thinking about nothing in particular.

He doesn’t know how long he lays there for, but it must’ve been hours, his mind drifting in and out of reality while his body stays and leaves an imprint in the grass, still moist from the dew. He hears a voice shouting something from far away and quickly ducks behind the drinking well.

“Meier! Jean Meier! Are you there?” the voice calls out to him. It’s a man’s voice, he’s not sure whose, but he can tell it isn’t the Gouverneur’s. Jean doesn’t dare poke his head up to look, though, he’s petrified to know what will happen if he gets caught.

Merde! He left the bucket full of milk right out in the open, and now Mousse is curiously approaching it. Please, please don’t notice. Please.

“Meier! Meier? Where the hell is he?” the man grumbles as his voice gets further and further away. Jean sighs in relief once his voice fades to being near-inaudible. He peeks over the well and sees the man walking away. He squints. Isn’t that Frank Albagnac?

While Jean put no effort in bonding with the other villagers, he knew plenty about them—their jobs, their efficiency, their strengths, their weaknesses, even their fears. Among them, Frank Albagnac was the one he was watching the closest. Perhaps it was unfair to call him unremarkable, in that sense. Being a washerman was no job to rave about, but it did make him familiar with the other townsfolk, and most significantly of all, the Gouverneur. In fact, the only person other than himself that he observed being so close to the Gouverneur was Frank Albagnac. Eyebrow-raising, was it not? Whatever the case, this fact made Jean almost certain that the Gouverneur was the one who sent Frank to search for him.

He takes the metal bucket and guides Mousse to drink from it. He begins to hear more noises, so he rushes to return back to his hiding spot. Muguet has now walked away to graze elsewhere, and Mousse follows his mother closely—a mama’s boy, just like our hero. Jean hears someone running back to the village, probably Frank. A few moments later, he hears loud shuffling on the gravel path. There are multiple voices, he can’t count them all. A bead of sweat trickles down his temple. The voices approach closer.

Jean realizes, then, that they are not approaching him. Over to the side, he peers over and watches a group of maybe a dozen people, both men and women, surround the cow and calf. They talk amongst themselves, then he hears the unmistakable sound of Mousse’s cowbell clanging around as he is picked up by one of the men. So he was right this whole time! He watches the excited crowd leave with his poor calf in their arms, like a pack of wolves to a lamb. He must tell Bonnot about this now.

---

“You abandoned your station for that?”

Jean paces back and forth in front of Bonnot’s desk, eyes wide with delirium, “I had to—listen, this is serious, they’re all in on it, I saw it with my own two eyes. That’s my calf! Mine! What gives them the right to—”

“Meier. I expected better from you. I’m disappointed.” Bonnot stares at him with that same ice-cold stare, unmoving. The cigar burns away between his fingers.

Jean is dumbfounded. “What?”

“If you can skip work just because you ‘feel like it’ then what’s stopping us from all being pathetic, lazy slobs who will run this place to the ground?”

Jean slams his hands on the desk. “Gouverneur, you have to understand, I did it because I suspected that someone would come to steal my cow today, I was told by someone—a little birdie, you could say—that it would happen.”

“Why did I take you in?”

“… Why?” He’s not sure if that was rhetorical.

“Don’t be stupid, boy. Ask yourself that.” It was, indeed. “While you’re thinking about that, you should come up with a proper punishment for lazy idlers who abandon their work for selfish, banal reasons.”

Jean is at a loss for words. What is even happening anymore?

“Are you just going to stand there?” Bonnot puts out his cigar. “Out of my sight, before I figure out that punishment myself.”

Jean hurries out, but not only out of fear or obedience. His eyes well up when he shuts the door behind him. He’s seeing red, but it’s blurry through the tears. With his head down, he runs to his shack as quickly as possible and sobs, and then gets angry at himself for sobbing. He smudges snot and tears all over the dirty, grass covered sleeves of his uniform. It’s all so pathetic.

Head Archivist Jean Meier snaps awake at his desk. His left hand is propping up his head by his chin, and his right is holding a pen. He must’ve dozed off working late, but he has no idea for how long. He looks down at his paperwork, but in his drowsy state the numbers and charts and symbols mean nothing to him. His own writing is pretty much illegible, he must’ve begun nodding off as he was working on it. Next to it, the new coffee mug he had gotten (which doubled as a birthday and new year’s gift) is empty, with a brown ring-shaped stain settling at the bottom. He tucks clumps of unkempt, silver hair behind his ear and checks his wristwatch. It’s a quarter past five.

As he stands up from his creaky chair—it’s a broken thing he constantly complains about, but is never willing to fix—he yawns and stretches, producing rather grotesque cracking noises with each movement. He opens the door of his stuffy, smoke-stained office to complete darkness, there’s no one else left at this hour.

As of late, Jean has been finding himself spending the night in his own office more frequently. Whenever he does, the days seem to blend into each other like billions of colorful squares being scrambled around to form gray static. Today, yesterday and tomorrow no longer mean anything when it’s all the same. He pretends to like it. He has to like it, because it’s the only way he can live with himself, the only way he can forget about the past. He has coworkers that talk to him sometimes, even if it’s always small talk. How are you? Got any plans this weekend? He has coffee. Bland, watery, lukewarm coffee. He has a job, he has responsibilities, he is a part of a system that is incomplete without him. He is alive. What more could he ask for?

He heads to the balcony to light himself a cigarette, but then he notices a trail of smoke outside the glass door. There’s someone else here.

He pushes the door open. The man turns towards him.

He must kill the man.

Jean Meier wakes up. His throat is parched, and his eyelids are swollen.

“Good morning, people of Nouvelle-Flandre. Today is the fifteenth of Pluviôse.”

Jean has to be strong in order to govern the weak. This is what Bonnot has been drilling in his head ever since the young man stepped foot on the cobblestone streets of the village, desperate and pitiable. Frankly, it’s a miracle the poor thing was able to stay alive for as long as he did; the kid had no sense of danger, of survival, you could tell he had not worked, truly worked a day in his life. Hence, Bonnot took it upon himself to build him up from the bare foundations. It's true that physically the boy needed time to develop, but he could tell his mind was soft and pliable, even if it took a bit of effort to crack the exterior of it.

Menial farmwork isn’t the only thing Jean has been conditioned to do by the Gouverneur. Jean learns from Bonnot the most valuable lesson of all, one of actions and consequences. He knows what happens to people who step out of line in Nouvelle-Flandre. He’s seen and done things he cannot speak of. The images of it surface in his mind, and bile rises up his throat.

He needs to be strong, he has to become a bulwark, or else he’ll end up like them.

Jean goes to wait behind the drinking well again. He rehearses in his head what to say, depending on how the confrontation plays out. If he has any natural strengths to his name, it’s that he’s a convincing speaker when he needs to be. Guilt-tripping is a specialty of his, and he’s especially persuasive when he takes advantage of people’s moral correctness and the fear of initiating a social faux pas to coax them into ceding to his requests. All he must do now is wait, and hope his nerves don’t show in his body language.

---

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Jean rigidly approaches the crowd.

Same as the previous day, Frank had come calling for him, left without an answer and went to call over the other townspeople. They kidnapped the calf in broad daylight. How bold, this won’t do for our vigilante Jean Meier.

The faces of the group immediately all turn toward him, startled. The commotion stops.

“No matter how many of you there are, sooner or later your punishment will come. You are aware of that, right? Besides, are you hoping this calf will feed all of you?”

No one answers, they glance at each other as if they will suddenly gain the ability to start communicating telepathically. Both parties wait for the other to make a move. Jean tries to steady his breathing, and says, “You know, we could all forget that we saw each other. I could tell the Gouverneur what I saw, but I won’t, as long as you don’t expose me for leaving my station as well. I know what the smarter choice would be right now, and I’m sure so do you.”

A woman speaks up, and Jean recognizes her from her voice.

“My son will starve! And so will the other children of this village. Your oh-so-great Gouverneur won’t open his damn eyes to this simple fact, and we’re all sick of it, do you understand?”

“That is an issue, definitely an issue. I don’t know what my cows have to do with it. Are you admitting that you are doing this to send a message?”

Another man cuts in, “Message? We can do much more to send a ‘message’.” His tone is threatening. Suddenly, Jean realizes that the crowd’s faces of shock have warped into something much more sinister.

“This kid is Bonnot’s dog, he’ll spill the first chance he gets, don’t trust a fuckin’ word out of his mouth”, says a different man. “It’s either us or him. Bonnot’s really gonna get all of us if this rat squeals.”

“No—no, believe me, you have my word…” Jean's heart pounds in his throat, his hands instinctively going to a defensive motion.

The woman replies, “You are going to be laughing as you cut off our fingers, one by one. I know what goes on in there, in the dark shed out in the woods, we all know. Are you having fun?”

“I—I don’t…”

“Shit, we got caught, this is bad…” another person, a younger voice, “I don’t wanna die, he’s gonna mess us up, he’s gonna mess up us real bad if this gets out, fuck, I don’t wanna die.”

The voices around Jean converge into an echoing, harrowing sea. He can’t feel his legs. For a moment, his world flashes white as he’s knocked over and hits his head on the ground. A huge weight overpowers him and leaves him pinned to the ground. Then there’s coldness on his neck—a pair of hands, large and firm, in the palms lay death itself. Mousse looks at him with big black eyes from behind the several pairs of legs in his line of sight. Then he can’t see him anymore. He can’t breathe. He can’t feel. He can’t

Jean Meier wakes up. He vomits. His entire body is covered in a sheen of sweat and his hands are shaking.

Died—he seriously just died! Jean feared death, and he surely did hate his life, but dying without death he had never considered. The feeling was indescribable. It seemed clear to him now that even death will not let him escape this wretched cycle. He dry heaves, then curls up into a fetal position, still shuddering. His nails find his forearms and without any second thought, without any awareness, capillaries burst as he claws at himself. The blood trickles down and joins the various fluids staining his sheets. He wants to scream and cry, but his throat feels like sandpaper. He wants to dig into his own body and crawl inside of it. Death is the only thing on his mind.

Après la mort, la vie encore.

Half-alive, he drags himself to the town square, where, across from it, sits an old chapel. Some old relic, from when faith had meaning. Inside, he searches for something behind the pulpit, tucked away underneath the wooden floorboards. He gives one of the planks a tug, and it comes loose. He reaches down, and his fingers meet cold metal. With shaky hands, he lifts the object out of the gap. A revolver, Bonnot’s, sits heavy and daunting in his grip, its barrel still shiny underneath a thin layer of dust. It was Bonnot himself who taught him how to fire a gun; it was for self-defense, he would say, although Jean knew very well none of those bullets were spent protecting anyone. He slides out the cylinder with a clack. Fully loaded.

---

Jean’s hands shake. His eyes dart around, scanning the shocked faces of the villagers. They aren’t looking back at him, the object in his hand is what their attention is trained on. His finger sits on the trigger guard of the revolver. He’s hyper-aware of everything, the cold, crisp air, the dewed earth, the drumming in his chest.

“Is that—he’s got a gun!”

“What the hell… how’d he know we were coming? We weren't supposed to get caught.”

The thieves freeze in place, taking note of Jean’s every micro-movements. Some of them are more ready to defend than others. The man who strangled Jean last time seems like he is ready to strike again at any moment.

“Hey, easy now, kid…”

Jean’s palms are sweaty. He tightens his grip.

“You don’t wanna do this, if you hurt one of us, what’ll the Gouverneur say? Or do? Let’s not have any trouble…”

Yes, Jean knew very well what happens to murderers, the violators of the most sacred law of all. That’s why he won’t become one, he never will. Killing another human being was simply for the lowest of the low, the weak and cowardly. For a moment, he rejoices in his moral superiority over the vile beasts that stand in his way. He thinks about the horrible punishment that he didn’t get to witness after they had killed him before. Ohoho! How they must’ve suffered at Bonnot’s hands, their minds and bodies broken past their limits. Who has it worse now? He tears up, and slowly, he moves his arm.

In an instant, the villagers all flinch, and one of them nearly leaps onto Jean before they all remain frozen in their tracks once more.

“What the…”

The end of the cold metal barrel presses into Jean’s temple.

Jean speaks like he’s out of breath, his body running on pure adrenaline. “Let’s… Let’s see what the Gouverneur does after this…”

The crowd erupts in a cacophony of panicked voices. Fear, so much of it.

“Is he out of his mind?!”

Jean’s finger moves to the trigger. The gun rattles from his violent shaking.

“Shit, man, he’s gonna do it! Look at his twisted face—he’s actually fucked in the head!”

“The Gouverneur let us do it, okay? We didn’t think—we didn’t want any of this to happen, just put the gun down—”

Wait. He did what?

When Jean feels a force from his side knocking him over, he fires, and for a moment all sound disappears. He tumbles to the ground, his jaw making a grotesque crunching noise as he nearly bites his tongue off hitting the ground, then warmth begins to pool in his mouth. Whatever thoughts he had rattle around his skull in disarray. The man from before has him pinned on his front, with his hands behind his back. The gun clatters on the dirt somewhere nearby. Piercing through the ringing in his ears, there’s screaming and shouting.

“Oh, god! It—it got Josephine!”

Through the pandemonium of voices, Jean cranes his neck to the side, and for a moment he sees the calf running away, right before the view is blocked by a body tumbling down across from him. It’s the same woman that had protested against Bonnot before. Her expression is frozen in terror, silently screaming, and a red flower blooms from her clothed breast. Oh, Jean, what have you done?

---

When Jean regains consciousness, it’s dark. Is he back in that blissful dream of nothingness? No, although his head does feel like pure noise, he picks up on the unmistakable smell of death in the musty air, and the sound of water dripping somewhere. Then the dull pain in his lower face makes itself known. He tries to move, then finds that his wrists are bound to the chair with rope. The light comes on. He winces and squeezes his eyes shut.

“I should have known that it would only be a matter of time.” It’s Bonnot’s voice. “It was a mistake on my part to expect anything better from you.”

Jean can’t respond because his throat is parched, and his jaw hurts to move.

“In the end, you were just mad and confused, like the rest of them. Open your eyes.”

He squints past the light and meets the Gouverneur’s cold gaze. Those eyes are telling him that this is the end.

“Look at yourself now. To think I believed you could have been fit to lead in any capacity, I must be going mad myself.” It’s barely audible, but he sighs. He gets closer and speaks in a low voice, “This won’t be satisfying for either of us, but what other choice do we have?”

Little should be described of the longest night Jean Meier has ever experienced. With his expertise, Bonnot knows very well how to keep him just on the brink of consciousness, dancing that fine line between unbearable pain and numbing death, so the boy can most thoroughly experience his punishment, all throughout his mind, body and soul. All Jean can do is beg and beg his own broken self for death, even though he knows that death will never free him. It’s the pain that makes this the most alive he has ever felt.

And it goes on and on.

It’s cold. Another gust of wind, Jean can’t feel his face. He’s not even sure if his ears are still attached to him. His fingers are numb, impossible to move or bend. He cannot feel his feet either, he has to look to make sure of where he is walking with each step forward in the snow. Frost collects on his nose, his lips and eyelashes. He’s sure they’re turning red and purple now. He looks up at the endless scape of dark tree trunks and limbs. The sky turns a deep shade of ultramarine as an invisible sun sets. There is no seeing into the distance, there is no distance, there is no end.

It matters little if his extremities are numb. As long as he hears the crunch of his boots in the snow, he’s aware that he’s moving, and eventually he’ll walk out of here. So he walks.

He trips. He is able to hold out his hands to brace himself in time, so when he lands on the snow, it’s on all fours. There is pain, but only for a second, then it is numb. He unsteadily pulls himself back on his feet, making sure with his eyes that his feet are balanced, then continues walking. He shakes the snow off his hands, not that it made any difference when he’s lost all feeling in them. He begins to lose feeling in his knees, so he tries to take quicker steps to keep his blood circulation going. Each step is heavier and heavier, and he feels more as if he’s mimicking the action of walking.

He falls over again, rigid like a statue, and there is no bracing himself this time. He tries to pull himself up, but with the numbness he can no longer stand. He does not call for help because there is no one to call out to.

Overcome by an enormous, burning heat that quickly spreads from his core, he hurriedly unbuttons his coat. It’s a difficult, demanding affair, and he has to part his frosted lips to nibble on his fingers to restore some semblance of feeling in them. It’s hot, and burning to death like this would be the last thing he wants. He manages to free himself from his coat before his fingers freeze over again. He has lost them for certain now. He wriggles out of his sweater, his button-down underneath coming off with it. He looks down and sees to it that undoing his belt and trousers would be a futile affair, so he kicks off his boots and socks and accepts the state that he’s in.

The heat has thankfully turned into numbness, though there is still cold. A different kind of cold, the cold of missing. What he needs right now is Maman. That’s where he was walking to, he was trying to get home to Maman, how could he forget? He’s very tired now, though surely tomorrow he’ll make his journey back to her. For now, he will rest.

He wriggles and burrows himself into the snow, letting it cover him like a blanket. He lays there with his knees curled up to his chest. He feels like he’s floating.

Before sleep takes over him, he thinks, Maman, I’m coming home!

Jean Meier wakes up. He shivers.

It’s so clear to him now. To escape this loop is to overcome his biggest obstacle of all—Gouverneur Bonnot. He’s always understood this, and yet he has been denying it day after day. Perhaps he knows that everything that had been built would fall apart, perhaps he knows that neither he nor anyone else is fit to lead, if they could even muster up a fraction of Bonnot’s authority. Most of all, though, Jean would hate to be alone.

In the dark, dusty chapel, underneath the rotting floorboards, Jean takes his instrument of escape.

---

Four knocks on the door. “Meier, are you in there?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Oh,” a genuine expression of surprise, Frank clearly did not expect this to be the case. “Are you alright? We were just worried because you didn’t show up for work today.”

“No. Can you come in?” Jean replies curtly.

Frank pushes the door to Jean’s cabin open.

---

Three knocks on the door. “It’s me, Jean.”

Bonnot frowns. If the boy had been absent for the entire day, he’d better have a good reason to be here. He didn’t even hear back from Frank when he’d sent him to search for Jean.

“Come in.”

And what a sight it is that Bonnot is beheld to. He first sees Frank Albagnac, the man’s eyes wide and panicked. Pushing up against the underside of his chin is a shiny revolver, one that Bonnot instantly recognizes, for he had not too long ago hidden it away for emergency use, not just for himself but for his apprentice Jean as well. Jean has his free arm firmly snaked around Frank’s collarbone, and he nudges him forward with his leg. He glares at Bonnot. Frank mouths a silent plea for help.

Bonnot puts out his cigar and stands up, still positioned behind his desk. “Now what is this about? Have you finally gone mad?”

“I have to end all of this. I know everything I needed to know from the others. You’ve had it out for me, and you’ve put me in this hell for your enjoyment.”

“What is this nonsense?”

Jean grits his teeth. “Don’t act foolish. The calf. You knew something that I don’t, you knew that it was the catalyst, so you made the villagers march down to the pasture to take it from me, to take everything away from me.”

Bonnot scoffs in disbelief. “This is about the calf? Meier, do you think those animals are your dumb little pets that you take care of and play fetch with every day?” Carefully, step by step, he approaches closer. “You have always been raising them for meat, meat that will sustain us when nothing grows here anymore. They’re meant to die, and yet you are equating their worth with a human life?”

“No. No. I know you put me in this neverending loop. You chose that calf not to feed the people, but because you knew that it would lead to my suffering. Admit it.”

The way Bonnot’s eyebrows are furrowed makes Jean almost believe that he knows nothing about what he is being accused of.

“I can tell you this. It’s true that I allowed those people to take your cow, but it was only after several complaints. You and I both know that famine is becoming an imminent peril for this place.” Bonnot looks at Frank, then back at Jean. “I allowed this to happen as a form of appeasement; you know that leaders are the ones who make the biggest sacrifices of all, do you not?”

Jean swallows, and croaks out, “I… I feel like I’m being punished for something I didn’t do.”

“Meier, let go of him. He’s not a part of this.”

Like a hypnotic trance, Jean obeys, releasing his hold on Frank, who then exchanges a glance with Bonnot before silently leaving the room. It’s a crucial mistake for poor Jean, for he has now lost the upper hand.

Jean clutches on the gun. Only now does he realize how much Bonnot towers over him, making him feel smaller than he’s ever felt. Bonnot looks down at him and asks, “It’s not about the calf, is it?”

“You really have no idea? About the days repeating?”

“Huh?” It’s too confused, too earnest of a voice. “I don’t have a single inkling.”

“You must think I’ve gone insane.”

Bonnot doesn’t reply, only looks him up and down. Yes, he does.

With that, words flow uncontrollably out of Jean’s mouth. He recounts all that happened, each repetition, each death, each time he closed his eyes just to disappointingly open them again, back at the beginning. Bonnot’s eyes never leave his, which only serves to make Jean shrink smaller and smaller.

Jean feels a familiar void making itself known in the bottom of his throat. Breaking the eye contact, he ends his monologue saying, “That’s why I feel like I need to kill you.”

Bonnot takes a long pause to process the boy’s words. Jean can tell that he doesn’t know whether or not to believe him.

“Do it, then.”

“What?”

Bonnot grabs Jean’s wrist, yanking it up so that the barrel of the revolver presses underneath his chin.

“Do it. Kill me.”

A stunned silence. In that silence, something breaks. Tears gather around Jean’s eyes. The look Bonnot is giving him carries the same coldness as that boundless snowscape, covered in a thicket of intertwining branches—how could he survive such a thing? This couldn’t be the way out, no, in this forest there is no way out. There is only one way that this ends. It is time for Petit-Jean to bury his head in the snow, curl up into a ball and weep for his mother.

“Pathetic. Get out of my sight, scum.” Bonnot releases the boy after watching him blubber and shake his head, with tears and snot pouring down his face, I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I can’t. The gun clatters on the floor when he lets go. “Quick, before I decide I’m sick of seeing you forever.”

The cabin door shuts behind Jean.

There is no place called home.

A single dot in a canvas of noise becomes aware of itself. A consciousness sprouts like a sudden burst of flame. It will be alone forever, surrounded by other specks who do not bear that same burden of awareness. It is an atom, it cannot be further broken, it can merely be.

The boy hears his mother’s voice coming from no direction in particular. Though, it is not so much a voice as it is waves and frequencies pulsing within the interference. It is as much of a voice as it is formless colored dots.

My sweet little prince… Your crown is slipping. Don’t let it choke you.

Jean Meier wakes up. For the rest of his miserable life, he will wake up cold and trapped.

Before he attends the morning assembly, he goes to get his most cherished revolver at the old chapel.

“Good morning, people of Nouvelle-Flandre. Today is the fifteenth of Pluviôse.”

Jean Meier lets his head fill with empty noise. He walks to the pasture and picks up the metal bucket. He milks Muguet, she's happy and content, unaware of his suffering. Jean wishes he could be that kind of animal.

Jean leaves the bucket to scoop up Mousse in his arms. Surprised to be lifted up, the calf kicks his hooves a little bit in uncertainty, and then he's still as he begins eyeing Jean curiously. Jean doesn't look back at him as he returns to his cabin. Once he’s inside, he props a chair up against the door handle (the luxury of lockable doors are unattained by everyone but the Gouverneur) and gently releases Mousse on the wooden floor. Joining him on the hard, cold planks, Jean lays down, brushing aside the discomfort. He allows the waves of time to wash over him.

The calf looms over his head, sniffing him out of curiosity. Jean reaches out to gently scratch his chin.

“Hey buddy, do you think there’s another way out of this?”

---

Four knocks on the door. “Meier, are you in there?”

Simultaneously, Mousse’s ears perk up just as Jean turns his head towards the door. Jean realizes how sore his neck feels. How long had he been laying there? He ignores Frank’s call.

There is silence for a while longer, until Jean hears three firm knocks on the door. He sits up but doesn’t respond. Both Mousse and Jean are startled when the door is jostled but refuses to budge, resulting in the loud sounds of wood pounding against wood.

This time, it’s Bonnot’s voice that calls out to him. “Meier! I know you’re in here. Open up.”

Several more loud knocks. Jean’s hand goes to the gun at his waistband. After a brief moment of quiet, something heavy slams full force against the door. A loud crack emanates as the wood struggles to withstand the force of an unyielding grown man. With each push, the whole cabin seems to rattle. Jean’s finger smooths over the grip of the revolver. Another slam and the chair seems like it is about to give in. Another call of his name.

A powerful kick causes the door to shatter around the handle, the wood cracking and splintering off. Another one and the chair falls over with an unusually loud bang, then slowly the door swings open. The panicked calf runs outside, straight past Bonnot’s feet. There’s a faint gurgling sound coming from inside.

When Bonnot pushes the door open, he sees, sprawled on the floor, a most pathetic sight. In his own rapidly growing pool of blood, his arms reaching out and clawing around for nothing, is Jean Meier, in the saddest and most helpless state that Bonnot’s ever seen a man in. Jean chokes on his own blood, resulting in the most repulsive, most obscene noises that he can somehow tell are begs and pleas. Next to him is a revolver.

“You couldn’t even do that right.”

As blood gushes out of his head as quickly as his consciousness, Jean sees in his last moments the look on Bonnot’s face. Tired eyes filled with raw, unadulterated disappointment.

‘Jean Meier’ wakes up.

He rises to his feet, stumbling slightly. He sways and looks down at his hooves pressing into the moist dirt. He blinks and looks up at the sky, it’s the hour of the early morning where everything gets blanketed in a golden sheen. He’s content. There are no more memories, there is no more noise, there is no why or how.

He gets thirsty, so he trots over to the drinking well. He touches the water with his snout, then quickly reels back, startled by the sudden coldness. He carefully dips his muzzle in again and laps up the water, his tail swishing periodically. When he’s done drinking, he turns around to see a cow approaching him. It’s Maman! He trots a circle around her, and she lowers herself onto the grass on her elbows.

From that moment on until forever, mother and son remain.

Jean Meier wakes up with nothing to lose. He’s done running away. He knows what he must do.

First, he takes the gun from the sad old chapel.

“Good morning, people of Nouvelle-Flandre. Today is the fifteenth of Pluviôse.”

Then, he milks Muguet but leaves the bucket. Making sure that no one sees him, he sneaks into the toolshed to take the items that he needs. He picks up and carries Mousse in his arms back to his cabin once more.

---

The Gouverneur knocks three firm times on Jean’s door. His patience is running thin—matter of fact, he’s been feeling on edge as of late due to the growing demands and requests of the townspeople. The last thing he needed was his highest potential man to suddenly abandon his responsibilities for some worthless reason. It’s times like these that Bonnot finds himself questioning why he had chosen Jean in the first place, the boy had no backbone, no sense of self-preservation, just a vague, wishy-washy idea of a moral compass. He scoffs at the thought, but he supposes that he too had once undergone a point in his life where he was no different from that weak boy. Right now, though, punishment will be in order for this disrupting little brat. Looks like he even left the fireplace going, judging by the smoke rising from his chimney. Who taught him such luxuries?

The wood cracks into large shards and splinters around the flimsy old handle, which now hangs loose. Bonnot recomposes himself after kicking the door with considerable force.

He pauses. Even in the cold, stale air, he smells the most unmistakable smell of all.

“What the…”

He pushes the door open and warmth hits him in the face, bringing with it that horrible stench of death. The first thing he sees is the trail of blood on the floor. There is a lot of blood, as a matter of fact, some of it is pooled, some smeared, some imprinted with the sole of a boot. He walks inside, wishing he had brought his gun. His breath hitches in disgust when he notices bloodied fur and remains on the floor. He supposes that answers where the damned calf that the villagers were promised had gone.

Over the crackling of the flame, he hears light sobbing. Or it could be laughter. He looks over and sees Jean from behind, kneeling in front of the fire. Strewn beside him is a revolver, an old, bloodied military-grade machete, and the severed head of a calf.

Even Bonnot is at a loss for words. “… What is all this?”

Jean turns around. He’s both smiling and in tears. In his hands is a chunk of partly-cooked meat.

Shakily, deliriously, but with the utmost sincerity, Jean answers, “I’m just taking what’s mine.”

Jean Meier wakes up. It’s becoming impossible to tell real from unreal each time he dies.

Right, Bonnot ended up torturing him to death again last night, though he could tell from his face that his conscience was not really on board. Jean found satisfaction in triggering such a reaction in Bonnot. The man was caught completely off-guard, ha! Should've seen the look on his face! For once, Bonnot was the one suppressing his vomit, even though he's seen much, much worse. Seeing fear in his eyes for the first time was nothing short of exhilarating. He was so elated in that moment, that the rubberiness and blandness of the meat mattered little to him, he could hardly tell whether he was eating the flesh of his own calf or that of Bonnot's. Jean decides he is in a rather good mood today after all, especially compared to the previous days.

“Good morning, people of Nouvelle-Flandre. Today is the sixteenth of Pluviôse.”

Something’s off.

“I hear your troubles. I will ensure to the best of my ability that the rations are distributed equally, and eliminate all foul play. Aside from this, there is no more news. Proceed to your stations, for a productive day of work is ahead of us. For Fraternity and Eternity!”

Jean stands frozen as the crowd disperses around him. He suddenly blurts out, “Wait, Gouverneur, before you go, could you repeat the date again?”

“What? What is this abou—”

Jean urgently interrupts, “Just tell me what day it is!”

“Sixteenth of Pluviôse.”

“What happened yesterday, on the fifteenth?”

Bonnot furrows his brows. “What? Nothing in particular. What is this nonsense, Meier?”

“I…” Jean’s eyes are wide open, causing concern for Bonnot. “Nothing. I lost track. I’ll get to work now, thank you, Gouverneur.”

Jean runs over to the pasture, his expression still frozen in disbelief. Was it really over?

In the field stands the silhouette of a single cow. For some reason, he does not feel the need to search for another one.

Head Archivist Jean Meier leans back in his chair. Strangely, he can’t concentrate today. A coworker walks by, and without a word drops off a stack of papers at his desk. Jean sighs. It would be nice to get some fresh air.

Jean drinks stale coffee from his newly gifted mug as he looks out at the emptiness beyond the balcony. Somewhere out there is his past, long since buried. He wonders when real contentment will come to him, if it is even possible. Perhaps he is dreaming too much; dreams are only for unsatisfied men.

He turns back towards the glass door of the balcony. A printer spits out a dozen copies of employee report sheets. Next to the water cooler, a paper cup gets thrown away into a trash brimming with cups identical to it. The office lights line up uniformly. People walk around wearing neckties and lanyards with their own faces on it. Somewhere, a phone rings. Somewhere else, a phone hangs up. Two people carrying papers bump into each other and apologize at the same time. Someone takes a drag of a cigarette. The coffee machine dispenses a dark, watery liquid.

Jean wonders why every day feels exactly the same.