Marie and Stéphanie had been lucky. After nearly two and a half hours of walking stubbornly along the A1 highway, they found a farm that seemed peaceful amidst the first fields north of Paris. Little did they know, they had stopped right next to Paris-Le Bourget Airport and not far from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport.
The owner was a young man in his thirties, the son of the previous owner, named Mathieu Rosiers. He was of medium height, broad-shouldered, with brown hair and a light beard. Despite his round belly, he had broad, muscular arms with prominent veins.
When they arrived at the entrance of his farm, Marie, the elder, had recounted their story to him, which was quite brief once summarized. He had been deeply moved by it. Though he had lost both his parents, it hadn't happened on the same day.
Thanks to them, he knew a bit more about what was happening in Paris, and it sent shivers down his spine.
If it's the same everywhere and no one's in charge, he had thought, then France is lost.
But as his late father, Simon Rosiers, used to say, opportunities are everywhere, you just have to seize them.
A nice phrase full of optimism that might suggest it was an easy thing, but his tough life and premature death proved otherwise.
However, Mathieu had glimpsed the shadow of an opportunity when he saw the lights of the capital extinguish in the distance: if the crisis persisted, demand would skyrocket!
Indeed, the French were numerous, but there were very few people like him producing food. Most of the goods found on supermarket shelves and large shopping centers came from elsewhere, sometimes from the other side of the world, even though they could be produced locally! It wasn't uncommon to see fruits and vegetables from Africa or South America! But if everything stopped working, like his tractor or his mobile phone, then everyone would be forced to consume what was produced nearby!
Paris was a gigantic monster that devoured a considerable amount of resources before the crisis to satisfy everyone's needs. Now that it was cut off from the rest of the world and its lucrative markets, its inhabitants would have to do things differently and turn to producers like him who worked the land from morning till night.
How many times had he been criticized or even threatened by environmental extremists because he used fertilizers on his land? What would they say now that they couldn't get soy steak and other organic nonsense from who knows where to end up on their plates?
He might not be organic, but he was environmentally conscious and producing something. Those same people, he had no doubt, would soon come begging to him to produce more because they were hungry.
His small business, already in financial difficulty to the delight of real estate developers and other vultures coveting his land, couldn't afford to stop, even for a few days. So, he had continued to work in his fields using his manual tools. Quickly, he realized that he couldn't do it alone. There was too much work even though he only had a few plots of land. Even with his machinery, he struggled. So, despite his doubts, he had accepted to hire the two young ladies who had presented themselves to him in hopes of getting a job.
"You girls did pretty well," announced the farmer, covered in dirt, as the sun set peacefully behind the window of his living room. "You can be proud of yourselves!"
Marie and Stéphanie eagerly drank the hot and fragrant vegetable soup that Mathieu had just served. Although exhausted after nearly three hours of intensive work, they still had enough energy to empty their bowls.
Their job had been simple: replacing the tractor to till the soil. Fortunately, the work had been greatly advanced before the blackout, otherwise they would have been forced to do this work on a much larger area.
My hands hurt so much! My back and legs hurt too! Oh, I have blisters!
Stéphanie silently looked at her battered hands, despite the gloves Mathieu had lent her. Marie was in the same state as her.
Mathieu also hurt all over because he wasn't used to working so hard to accomplish so little. His fingers were now covered in bandages.
As he drank his soup, he watched his two new employees. He found them very brave, knowing they had experienced a tragedy and came from the city, far from his daily life.
The silence was heavy in the small house nestled between the fields and the warehouses of his modest farm. It was the youngest, a fifteen-year-old girl with short blue hair, who broke it after she finished cleaning her plate with a piece of bread that had hardened.
"What's it for, by the way?
"What harvest do you mean? It's for corn. It's still the right time, but we shouldn't delay too much because we need to start planting the seeds if we want a harvest by the beginning of October.
"October?!" exclaimed Stéphanie, almost choking on her glass of water. "But what are we going to eat in the meantime ?!"
"Haha, don't worry about that. I don't just grow corn, you know? From June onwards, we'll have barley and durum wheat. I prepared the land by plowing and sowing the seeds last year: between August and November for barley and between September and November for wheat. I also grow potatoes, but the seeds still need to be planted. We have until the end of next month if we want a good harvest in September and October. As for the beets, there's nothing more to do, except weeding to make them grow well. If all goes well, we can harvest them between September and November."
"Mister Rosiers..."
"Call me Mathieu, Marie. Mister Rosiers was my father. I'm not that old, haha!"
"Mathieu, do you... Do you really think nothing will go back to normal by then?"
The farmer wiped his mouth with a paper towel and thought seriously before replying. He didn't want to bring them bad news, but he also didn't want to lie.
"Honestly, I have no idea, but we should expect the worst. If everything goes haywire like in Paris, but all over France or the whole world, then nothing will go back to normal. You see, people cooperate very well at the local level, but at the scale of a country, it takes solid organization. Before the blackout, it was easy thanks to the Internet and the telephone. But communication is now impossible. What's happening in Paris isn't known in Bordeaux unless someone makes the trip there to pass on the information."
"Go there? Without a car? That'll take too long!" said Stéphanie.
"Hmm, what the government should do is contact all the local stakeholders to tell them to maintain order and all those who are capable of restoring electricity to work together to achieve that goal. But how to find them and how to make them act together? For me, it's not possible, especially since all these people need to eat, drink, and look after the safety of their families. They'll put their family first, above everything else, which means they won't cooperate with the government even if they begged on their knees."
"So, there's no hope?" murmured Stéphanie, lowering her eyes.
"I... I don't think so, indeed. The government will have collapsed long before solutions are found. But don't make that face, it's just my opinion! I could be wrong! Come on, who wants more soup? You'll need strength for tomorrow, it'll be a big day!"
The two girls nodded and extended their bowls for more soup. It was hot and had a sublime orange color. There were only good vegetables, a little salt, and pepper. Nothing more.
Right next to the young girl's plate was her cell phone. Although out of service, she had placed it there in case it started working again. She occasionally pressed the power button to check. She had realized belatedly that she had left without even notifying Morgane. She was so shocked after her parents' death that she had followed her sister without thinking.
As she drank her soup, Stéphanie observed Mathieu's living room. It was very simple, certainly reflecting the man she and her sister had just met.
There was a large stone fireplace, a corner sofa, a large television on a heavy wooden TV stand, a dining table and a few chairs, a coffee table, a book corner, and some green plants.
It's so... rustic. It looks like an old person's house.
Upon entering the room, she had noticed a photograph showing a slightly younger (and thinner) Mathieu than he was now, alongside a massive man, very smiling, posing in front of an imposing green and yellow tractor. She hadn't dared to ask what had happened to his father.