Gregory Toussaint, whom everyone at the station called Greg, was feeling down. After the first months of confusion, he had time to reflect. He had seen his fellow citizens behaving like bandits, even the most ordinary ones. Those who had been useful to the society before found themselves at a loss when they realized they couldn't work.
When they lost their jobs, they lost their bearings and a means to feed their families. Since childhood, they had been told to get a good job to earn a good salary and never lack anything. Now, they were told to find other means to achieve the same results.
Seeing the postman, the baker, the mechanic, the bartender, the cashier, the janitor, and so many others losing their footing and falling into delinquency deeply affected him, but he said nothing. He followed the movement and obeyed orders to restore order in his country.
When the government collapsed, and the President was killed, he said nothing and kept moving forward for the good of the people.
But when the people turned against them because they didn't have enough to eat, something broke inside him.
There had been significant protests in Nanterre despite the bans, and many acts of violence had been committed. He could understand their distress; he himself had an empty stomach and ate only every other day, but there was a limit not to be crossed.
Shouting at them and blaming them entirely was more than ingratitude. These people, for whom he had worked so hard, now inspired him with contempt.
He wanted to do what so many before him had done: return his uniform and leave. Maybe return to his native island, Guadeloupe. Its beautiful landscapes, clear waters, captivating scents, his mother's laughter, the song of exotic birds, the climate. He missed everything.
What kept him from trying to return there, across the Atlantic Ocean, over six thousand kilometers away, was his colleagues and friends. They were like a second family to him. Not once had they been mean to him, unlike what some had said before he left for the mainland. Not once had they looked at his skin color. If they joked about his Caribbean accent, it was with kindness. He himself laughed a lot at the accents of his comrades.
The only ones who had been bad to him were those who despised the uniform and everything it represented. He had been insulted in countless ways to make him understand that a black man shouldn't be in the police force. Karima Ali, his superior, had suffered a lot, just like him, but she had endured. She showed him that he could be proud to be a gendarme, no matter how much others criticized him for it.
More than once, he had talked with her. They got along well and spoke freely despite the difference in rank and age, which was actually not significant. They respected each other.
"Are you okay?" Karima asked, placing a caring hand on Greg's sore shoulder.
"Humpf, I'm okay. But it could be better," he replied, gritting his teeth.
"Are you hurt?"
"Don't worry. It's nothing. I'll just have a big bruise. Someone threw a stone at me, and I got hit on the shoulder."
"Shit! Sorry."
"It's no big deal," said the gendarme with a weak smile.
Karima wasn't unaware of her comrade's distress. Since practically the first days, a psychological unit had been set up at the station so that everyone could share with a team of professionals whatever was troubling them. Doubt, sadness, frustration, anger, despair. The moral state of the gendarmes who worked every day to try to keep things together was not good.
It could be compared to a vase that had been thrown against a wall and clumsily glued back together. Not all the pieces were in place, and some were even missing. While many gendarmes had simply given up the fight, others had been forced to take a break to catch their breath.
Karima had gone through that after her facial injury, and for some time, her comrade Greg Toussaint had been going there regularly.
He shared some of his thoughts with her, which she appreciated a lot. It meant he trusted her and knew he would find a listening ear.
"Karima?"
"Yes?"
"I'm going to leave."
The young gendarme glanced at her comrade, whose eyes were filled with distress. He looked downcast and stared at the ground.
Karima wasn't surprised. He had already talked to her about it. Greg had just been postponing it. From the tone he used, she knew his decision was made. She didn't ask him if he was sure.
"What are you going to do? Return to Guadeloupe?"
"I'm going to try, anyway. It's going to be quite an adventure."
"That's for sure. I don't think I would have the courage to do it if I were you. It's so far away."
"I'm probably not the first. How many foreigners were there in France at the time of the blackout? They must have walked to their home countries if they were lucky enough to live in Europe or Asia. For the others, they have to find a boat."
"You'll be traveling for months, right?"
"Probably, yes," Greg replied, looking at the gray sky. "I think I made my decision too late. Winter is coming soon. I don't know the winds, but I'm sure it's better to leave in the spring."
"In that case, why not leave after winter? When it starts to get nice."
"Hmm. Maybe."
Karima breathed a slight sigh of relief. Even if her friend was leaving soon, if he could postpone his departure by a few months, that was perfectly fine with her. She wasn't in a hurry to see him go.
"And what if it's the same there? What if there's no electricity?"
"It's the islands, Karima. People are very resourceful. Electricity arrived on my island very late. Even though the population is mostly young, there are still many elders who haven't forgotten how to live without the luxury of modernity. Those born after must be as lost as we all are here. They will need help."
Those here also need help.
Karima didn't voice her thought and decided to remain silent.
They stayed that way for long minutes, plunged into a deep silence, as if the rest of the world didn't exist or no longer existed.
Since the world, at least what she had seen of it, had gone mad, Karima appreciated these moments of surreal calm. Time seemed to stand still. She could let several tens of minutes pass like this without moving. She had moved so much in recent months that no one could blame her for being so still.
Her thoughts were disrupted by a small drop of cold rain that exploded on her cheek, where she had been burned. It was soon followed by another drop that landed on the back of her hand. Soon, a violent downpour fell on the station.
The drops pounded the roofs and the paved ground all at once, making a deafening noise. The air seemed to have become colder.
No one ran to fill the water cans because they were already full. Water had not been lacking for a month and a half. The problem remained food, which did not fall from the sky.
She saw from afar a man entering the barrack, pulling a wheelbarrow that seemed very heavy. He was a volunteer, not a gendarme or a policeman. His role was certainly one of the most thankless in the city, but it was necessary.
In exchange for a double ration of food, he roamed the streets of Nanterre with his wheelbarrow, bringing back the bodies of all those who had lost their lives since the power outage to be buried. Some bodies were in a deplorable state, which is why volunteers did not rush to perform this task.
He only returned to the station once his wheelbarrow was full, and it filled up quite quickly. Out of modesty, he covered his wheelbarrow with a sheet, which is why he was nicknamed "the draper." For the younger ones, he was like the Grim Reaper himself, even though he was only transporting them here. Hunger and disease were the real culprits. Despite explanations, children avoided him like the plague.
"His wheelbarrow is full again," Karima noted.
"Yes. There will come a time when he won't find any more bodies."
"I hope so, but I don't really believe it. We're not even in winter yet."
"We're going to freeze," Greg confirmed, closing his coat and burying his hands deeply in his pockets.
"Yeah. Let's go inside. There's no point in staying here. It's a good way to catch a cold."
The two gendarmes took one last look at the man with the wheelbarrow, who was taking the bodies he had found to the back. Soon, they would be buried or burned to prevent an epidemic from breaking out in the city.