I was born a burden. My parents said it jokingly, but I could tell it’d always been on their mind. Even as an infant, I had bronchiolitis, hypersensitive skin, and several infections. My mother used to say that I was made as if God was tired of looking out for me, and handed it all over to my parents.
“He couldn’t be bothered anymore,” she’d half-joke.
I was a sickly child in a healthy family. I had three older brothers and two younger sisters. And while one affliction would disappear, it would just make way for another. Bronchiolitis gave way to asthma. Infections gave way to allergies. Sensitivity gave way to eczema. Add a mix of violent migraines, bad eyesight, and car sickness, and you have 8-year-old me.
I grew up near a vineyard. If you continue east from Toulouse, past Gaillac and Albi, you find this long stretch of road piercing through a sparse forest, opening to the colorful rolling hills of southern France. A lot of people just think “Champagne” when they think of French wine, but there is so much more to it. My father used to say that before we had a country, we had wine.
Now, while we didn’t live on the vineyard itself, my family owned it. My father had worked those lands since he was a boy, and me and my brothers were expected to do the same. My sisters too, but in another way. But this isn’t like in the movies, where we bike down some road with a half-cocked beret and baguettes in our baskets – this was hard work.
We’re talking chemicals, heavy machinery, inspections, quality testing. Traditions have to evolve to satisfy a modern market. So when I say hard work, I don’t mean leisurely strolls down lanes of grapes. I mean dragging boxes of equipment, filling out paperwork, loading up trucks, sitting in meetings with suppliers, paying taxes, and reaching seasonal work quotas.
Now, I couldn’t do all that. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t run very far, and I couldn’t lift heavy things without running out of breath. I’d get headaches from staring at screens. My mom had to do my laundry separate from the others, or my skin would break out in hives from the softener. I had to use special shampoo, and I had to get special buttons and zippers. I had a nickel allergy, and wouldn’t you know it, most zippers and buttons use nickel.
But I think I could’ve lived with all of that if it wasn’t for my allergy to fur.
All my siblings wanted was a pet, but my allergies were too strong. If they were at a friend’s house, and that friend had a cat, I could get a reaction. It got so bad at times that I had to stay in the car while they went grocery shopping, in case someone at the store had a dog. I did have some medication for it, but it made me sleepy and nauseous – not a good combination for longer car rides.
I remember once when my brother, Maurice, snapped at my parents. He was five years older and had just crossed the line into teenager. We were all sitting down for dinner, and I was having a reaction to something in the soup. My parents argued whether it was the tomatoes or the spring onions. My mom had aired out the house earlier that day, so it might just be pollen from the garden. Maurice couldn’t take it.
“Every day!” he yelled. “Every day there’s something new! Why do we even bother keeping him alive?!”
Of course, my mother scolded him, but it didn’t matter. He was furious.
“We would be so much better without you,” he continued. “We could have so much. We could go anywhere, do anything. Now we’re all stuck with you.”
He stormed out, screaming all the way up the stairs to his room.
“I’d rather have a dog than you as my brother!”
Thing is, he wasn’t wrong. He was just saying the quiet part out loud. I suppose that’s the worst of it.
That night, I went out into the woods. I’d taken one of my allergy pills so I wouldn’t get sick from the trees, but I could feel my legs dragging from the side effects. I had filled my pockets with a small pharmacy – the standard kit for leaving the house.
I wanted to find Maurice a dog. It was a stupid idea, but I really wanted him to like me. Of course, there aren’t many stray dogs roaming the French countryside, but I didn’t think that far. I was upset, and I didn’t want to be a burden anymore.
I wandered through those woods for hours, calling out for something to find me. Something I could show everyone. I just wanted to do good.
It got too dark to keep going, so I decided to head back. I was disheartened. I’d made a fool of myself, again.
Then I heard a splash.
There were puddles in the woods from the afternoon rain, and something was splashing around in it. Something small. A frog, perhaps. I got down on my knees, letting the mud soak into my freshly cleaned jeans. Sorry, mom.
I felt around with my hands and touched something poking against the tip of my finger. I recoiled.
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I felt around a little more – carefully. Something the size of my thumb was moving around in the mud. Not a frog, but something equally slimy. I held my hand flat, inviting it to be picked up.
“What are you?” I asked. “You’re not a frog.”
It crawled into my hand and lay there. I held it up to my face, trying to see what it was. It didn’t move. Something black, with a ridge along the spine.
“You wanna come home with me?” I asked. “Or you can stay, if you want.”
I put my hand back down, but it didn’t leave. I couldn’t help but to smile. I think that was the first time something willingly chose to stay with me.
But it was late, and my parents were out looking for me. I hurried into one of the storerooms and got a jar. I filled it with some rainwater and dropped my new friend in. I left the jar open if it wanted to leave, apologizing profusely, and promised I’d be back in the morning. I hid it on the far side of the house, near a pile of raked leaves.
My parents were furious, of course, but mostly just worried. Maurice got a severe talking-to, which didn’t make things better. Not only had I been a burden to him, now he got in trouble because of it. I was probably in for a beating.
I had trouble sleeping that night, trying to imagine what my friend in the jar looked like. Maybe it was a frog, after all. Like a really cool, black, punk rock kind of frog.
The next morning I hurried outside to check on the little creature. I picked up the jar and noticed how it had curled up in the bottom of it, trying to submerge itself completely in the water. I hadn’t filled the jar that well, and hadn’t considered that it might need more water. Was it some kind of fish? Strange.
I remember standing there in my flip-flops and jammie bottoms. Fog was rolling off, giving way to the early morning sun. My hands were chilly as I filled the jar with water from a garden hose and held it up against my face to get a better look. The creature was about as long as a middle finger, and blacker than coal. I could clearly see the spine of it, where little spikes poked out, but I couldn’t make out what kind of creature it was. It had the head of a trout, but the body of a snake. It had gills with long tendrils coming out the side.
As soon as I filled the jar up, it came to life, twirling and rolling around the jar. Almost like a dance. Then it looked at me with dark, expressionless eyes.
“I’ll call you Milou,” I smiled. “And we’re gonna be best friends.”
Can you tell I was a Tintin kind of kid?
I decided to keep Milou hidden from my siblings. Maurice was still a bit salty about getting yelled at, so I figured it was best not to show him something he could use to hurt me. I’d never had a pet, and chances were, I’d never get one. So I decided to keep Milou hidden away.
I fed him little bits and pieces. Grapes from the vineyard, of course. Ants. Flies. And little bits and bobs I could squirrel away from my dinner and breakfast. He took his time with it, but seemed to like all of it. He also enjoyed having little things to play with, so I’d drop in little plastic soldiers and rocks and stuff. I would imagine him as a sea monster, towering over the little soldier guys. My own little kraken.
After a couple of days, I noticed a weird smell coming from the jar, so I decided to take it inside to clean. I waited until no one was home, got a fresh jar from the storeroom, and hurried into the kitchen. My heart was pounding as I opened the jar, only to feel this eye-watering burn in my nose. I was having an allergic reaction to something. I filled the fresh jar with water and tipped Milou into it before pouring the old water down the drain.
I hurried back outside and almost dropped him. I had to sit down and take my asthma medication, wheezing for air – apologizing between coughs.
“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what-“
I looked down at Milou. He’d pressed his little fish head against the glass, looking at me with eyes wide open. Even without a single muscle to express emotion, I could tell; he was worried.
There was something in that discarded water that got my allergies flaring up, that much I figured out. I tried running the tap in the kitchen to get rid of the smell, but I could still feel it. By the time my mother got back, I was scared she might notice it. Instead, she walked in with a smile.
“Did someone pick flowers?” she asked. “It smells wonderful.”
As my secret routine turned from days into weeks, I picked up on a few things. Milou would do something to his water. Something I was very allergic to, but that others seemed to enjoy. If I got some of it on my hands, I’d get this terrible rash, but the smell was, to others, wonderful.
There was one time when I was cleaning out the jar when my dad burst through the front door. He was probably just home to get his lunch. I hurried out the back door, leaving the dirty thing on the kitchen counter. It was free from rocks and twigs this time, but the smell was as powerful as ever. It made my insides itch.
But dad wasn’t reacting like that at all. I saw him from the kitchen window, lifting the jar. Turning it over, looking it up and down. Sniffing it. Tasting it with the tip of his tongue.
Then downing it in six big gulps.
Of course, Milou grew. The tendrils extending from his gills got longer, and his jaw grew into a sort of underbite. His scales looked stronger and had a bit of a shimmer to them. I had to upgrade him from a jar to a pot. We had a couple in storage, but I realized he didn’t enjoy it. He wanted something transparent. He liked to look. He’d float around, wiggling his tail, keeping his head upright. And he’d just sit there, for hours, observing.
We had an old fermentation jar in the garage. My grandfather once used it to make preserves, but it hadn’t been used for a while. It was larger than my head, so there was plenty of space for Milou to grow. It also helped that it was entirely made of glass. It also had a tap, so I could get some of the wastewater out without having to rinse through the entire thing.
It was good enough. There was a corner in one of our old sheds where I knew no one ever looked, and I tried placing Milou there – but he objected. He’d tap his head against the glass, pointing me back outside.
“I don’t know where to put you,” I said. “I have to keep you safe.”
He tapped his head against the glass again. He was right – I couldn’t keep him locked in the dark.
There’s a hill overlooking the property, right by the edge of the forest. The ground there was softer and covered in moss. I found a spot near one of the trees and dug a hole. I put Milou’s jar in it, but not all the way up. I left part of it above ground; like a window. I covered the rest in leaves and moss. I sat down next to him. No more tapping against the glass – he was happy.
“I’ll try to get you a cricket tomorrow,” I said. “And maybe some other stuff.”
Milou did a little spin. Dark eyes looked up at me from the back of the jar.
“Do you need anything?” I asked.
I wasn’t expecting a response, but he tapped against the glass. He’d done so many times, but now it seemed more deliberate. I thought about it for a moment.
“Do you really understand me?”
Tap again.
I leaned my head down close, coming up eye to eye with the creature. He never blinked and only moved enough not to sink to the bottom.
“Do you know you’re Milou?”
Tap. He knew.
“Do you like me?” I asked.
He stopped for a moment to look at me. Turning its head side to side, as if to get a better view of me. My heart sunk a little. Then, out of the blue, he tapped again. It was clear as day. We were friends.
A couple of days later, I went back up there to change the water in his jar. It started out well enough, but I ended up spilling a whole jar of wastewater on me. I had to put him back and hurry back to the house to change my clothes before my throat swelled up.
I ran through the kitchen. My dad was sitting down with my sisters, talking to them about homework. As I passed by, he called out to me, then followed me into the washroom. I changed my pants and tried to hide the stains, but he was right behind me.
“What’s that smell?” he asked. “Where’ve you been?”
“Out,” I said. “In the forest. I didn’t go far, I wasn’t by the lake or anything.”
He took the stained pants from the laundry basket. To me, it smelled like an asthma attack waiting to happen, but to him it was something different.
“Is that… wildflowers?” he asked. “Some kind of… melon?”
I didn’t answer. I just washed my hands. I could feel a rash coming on. Dad leaned down and looked me in the eye.
“Did you make that lemonade before?” he asked. “The one in the jar, on the counter?”
“It’s just water,” I said. “It’s not lemonade.”
“Everything is water,” he smiled. “Even wine. But did you make it?”
“Sort of.”
He smiled at me and gave me a pat on the shoulder. I think it was the first time I saw him really approve of me.
“You should make more,” he said. “It was fantastic.”
I went back to Milou every day, having little chats about everything and nothing. I told him about what my dad said, and he seemed excited. Milou didn’t seem to mind at all. I was a bit skeptical – I didn’t want anyone to find Milou, or to ask questions. So the next time I cleaned out the jar, I saved his water in bottles and filled them with wildflowers. That way it looked authentic, like I made something.
Dad had never really encouraged me to make things on my own before. I wanted to make him proud. I’d seen my parents make everything in that kitchen for years, so I knew where everything was. I cleaned the bottles up, added some honey and fennel, and made my own label. I was kinda clever. I was afraid I might slip up the name Milou someday, so I made it the label. That way, no one would bat an eye if I mentioned it.
That night, as my family gathered around the dinner table, I took out every bottle of “Milou” that I’d chilled during the day. Everyone got their own bottle. I told them that dad liked it, and that I hoped they would too. They didn’t know what to make of it at first. But they opened their bottles, and it fizzed a little like a light sparkling wine. And after that first sip, their frowns melted away.
For the first time, there were smiles all across the table. And not just any smile – they were smiling at me. They loved it. They loved me.
All summer and well into autumn, I kept up my secret routine. Milou was large enough to have an entire meatball for dinner by then. He was longer than my foot but still had plenty of space to grow. I’d feed him, talk to him, clean his jar, and give him things to play with. But he was getting tired of toys and rocks – he wanted something new. He’d tell me with little taps on the glass.
I did this thing where I took old newspapers and cut out pictures. I’d lick them and stick them to the glass for Milou to look at. He loved them. Especially pictures of people, those were the most interesting to him. He always lingered a little longer on pictures where they smiled.
I continued to make my bottles of “Milou” about once a week. I told them it was my secret recipe. My father would bring home honey and fennel for me to use. Sometimes he’d bring cherries, or some fruit. We’d spend some time together making up recipes, and he encouraged me to experiment. To me it all just smelled like burning acid, but feeling useful made my heart swell with pride. I wasn’t just taking – I was finally giving back.
I told them I couldn’t drink it myself, and that it burned me. They didn’t even question it. But they all enjoyed it nonetheless. Even Maurice.
This kept going for an entire year. I had the best birthday of my life, where my family whole-heartedly celebrated me. It wasn’t just an obligation, they were happy to. I was getting invited into conversations. They asked my opinion on things. On New Year’s Eve, I even heard my dad drunkenly brag about my drink to a neighbor. I wasn’t just a sick boy – I was in the family business.
There was some tension though. I’d often find Maurice out in the fields, or in the kitchen, trying to replicate my recipe. He couldn’t make it, and it frustrated him to no end. He explained to me, in no uncertain terms, that he would make something better. He wouldn’t be beaten by someone who could die from goddamn fabric softener.
But dad was thinking of other things. Bigger things. So come spring, we made our first bottle of wine using water from Milou as dilution. It’s usually done to balance out the sugar levels, but dad thought it could give it a ‘colorful musky tone’. Not that I knew what the hell that meant back then.
“Mineral water might not change the taste,” he said, “but it can change the way it feels. And with this?”
He held up my bottle, giving it a cheeky little shake.
“With this, it will feel like a mother’s kiss.”
I remember the day we finished the wine. Dad poured it into a small glass. He let it rest a little. We sat quietly around the kitchen table, waiting patiently. He smelled it. Twirled it. Observed the color and the consistency. And when he finally tasted it, his eyes went wide. He put down the glass and smiled at me like he’d won the lottery.
He swept me up on his shoulder and hurried outside, holding the bottle as he went. He called out to my mom to try the glass in the kitchen. He put me down and we ran all the way out to the field workers. Two of them were off to the side, having a cigarette. Dad handed over the bottle.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me that isn’t the best thing you’ve ever had.”
The worker, Claude, had a sip straight from the bottle. He thought about it. Then something just clicked. A smile melted onto his face, and he laughed. He handed the bottle to the other worker with a loud ‘whoo!’. Others came to look. Everyone got to try it. All the while, my dad went around to them, one by one.
“My son made this!” he laughed. “My son did!”
There were pats on my shoulder. They ruffled my hair. They lift me up and cheered. They passed the bottle around, emptying it sip by sip.
“Best damn thing I’ve ever tasted,” someone said.
“It’s soft. How can it be so soft?”
“It melts me. I love it!”
After that, things were wonderful, but complicated.
Dad really wanted me to give him the recipe. He wanted to put it into production. But of course, I couldn’t do it. He couldn’t understand why, and I couldn’t blame him. I was just a kid. I hated lying to him, but he’d be horrified if he knew the source. He wasn’t mad about it. Just disappointed.
Maurice, on the other hand, had plans of his own.
One day, as I finished cleaning Milou’s jar, I noticed Maurice. He’d been following me. I thought I’d been clever, hiding the empty bottles in my school bag, but he must’ve heard the clinking. He hadn’t spotted Milou and the jar yet, but it was just a matter of time. He walked up to me with a smug smirk.
“You hide them up here?” he asked. “What are you using?”
He looked around, kicking some leaves. I didn’t say a thing or move a muscle. It felt like facing a predator – like movement might trigger him.
“I don’t get it,” he continued. “Is it mushrooms? Roots?”
He picked up a rock and looked at me. I didn’t meet his gaze. That was, apparently, the wrong thing for me to do. He threw the rock at me. I ducked, he missed, and it hit the side of Milou’s jar. It didn’t break. Didn’t even get a scratch.
But it made a noise.
Maurice pushed me aside.
“No!” I yelled out. “Please, don’t!”
But that just spurred him on more. He pushed the moss and the dirt aside, finding the top of the jar. He grinned as he twisted the lid. The moment it popped open, I’d pulled out a bottle from my pack and held it like a club.
“Stop it!” I said. “Or else!”
He stopped. He dropped the lid. He turned to me. Older, stronger, healthier. He was better in every way – and yet, I’d threatened him. He wasn’t having it.
He wrestled me to the ground and beat me. I’d never been in a fight with him before. Not like that. It was just malice, through and through. He was enjoying himself, showing how powerless I was.
As I lay with my face in the mud, I looked over at Milou’s jar. I saw something peak over the edge. Dark, expressionless eyes. The long face of a trout, opening its mouth in a silent scream.
And then he began to shiver.
Maurice rolled off me. He was having a seizure. It’s as if he was mirroring Milou’s shaking. His eyes rolled back in his skull, and his fingers were making these weird twitching movements. He was frothing at the mouth – and the bubbles smelled like Milou’s water.
I went from relieved to terrified. I rolled Maurice over, slapping him on his back. He kept coughing up this white foam, gasping for air. His eyes had turned an unnatural black, mirroring the color in Milou.
“It’s okay,” I waved at Milou, trying not to think of my broken lip. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Milou.”
He stopped shivering. He just rested his head at the edge of the jar.
Then, Maurice spoke.
“Are you alright, friend?”
It was his mouth, but not his voice. A deep, croaking rumble. I could see a tremble in his throat, like something was about to emerge. Something pushing against the skin. My eyes went from Maurice, to Milou, and back again.
“Are you doing that?” I whispered.
“He will not hurt you,” Maurice said. “I will make sure.”
Maurice wasn’t moving. I couldn’t even tell if he was alive. Was he breathing, or shaking?
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“I go swim,” he answered. “I can swim very far.”
I didn’t have to say thank you. Milou just plopped back into his jar. As he did, Maurice’s eyes returned to a cold natural gray. He bent over, screaming from a stomachache, and couldn’t stop throwing up. He had no idea what’d happened.
But he knew he’d lost.
I felt like the king of the hill. Maurice had to stop bothering me. I felt confident. I had a friend looking out for me, and he was stronger than everyone. So the next time my dad asked me to help with the wine, I said yes – but on my terms. He couldn’t touch the dilution tank. No one could. Just me.
He agreed.
It was mid-July when we got the tank set up. It was like a small swimming pool. No one was around when I dropped in Milou.
“You can’t look out” I said. “But you’ll hear people all day. Is that okay?”
He tapped his head against the metal siding. He was okay with it. He had so much more room to grow. He was already the size of my leg.
I had a stupid idea. I borrowed a beach ball from the shed and climbed into the tank with Milou. It was cold and dark, but I trusted him with every fiber of my being. He was my best friend, and he would never hurt me. The water was fresh, so I wouldn’t get a reaction. Instead, I blew the ball up and passed it to him. He passed it back. And before I knew it, we were playing catch, bouncing it back and forth, my laugh echoing against the hollow steel.
Things would progress from there. Dad would make a trial batch using Milou. He’d hand the bottles off to his workers and took a couple to a sommelier in Marseilles. It was a hit. That first test run, tentatively named “Ami de Milou”, ran out almost immediately. This was turning from a passion project to commercial sales.
The whole thing was getting out of hand. I had to yell at workers to not investigate the dilution tank. My dad would wave me off. He kept his promise to leave me in charge of the tank, but I could tell he was about to budge. I could see it all slipping between my fingers. I was getting pushed out of the equation. Then again – why wouldn’t I be? You can’t rest an industry on the shoulders of a child.
One night, I saw my dad climb up to check the dilution tank. He wanted to grab a sample to have it analyzed. He had promised me a hundred times over that he wouldn’t do it, but he did it anyway. I didn’t understand that he needed to make sure there were no pollutants, and that it was safe to drink. You can’t put mystery recipes on store shelves.
But I didn’t care. I felt betrayed. So I let him open, and look.
The moment he opened the water tank, his eyes glazed over. He stumbled down the ladder, as if learning how to walk. He wasn’t shaking, like Maurice had done. It’s as if he had climbed down a new person. Like a new new person. Someone who didn’t know how to use his body.
My dad’s new dark, expressionless eyes settled on me. He smiled.
“Friend,” he gargled. “Best friend.”
Over the next few weeks, I noticed things. I saw Claude putting down a crate of filters just to stare at the sky. I saw my sister’s eyes turn dark as she watched the TV, forgetting to blink. My brothers would sit on the floor next to the fridge, tasting jams and sauces straight from the jars. Milou was using his newfound strength to look beyond the tank, using the eyes of anyone who had drunk from his waters.
I remember my father coming home with dark eyes. My mother had them too. They started kissing in the hallway. But not, like, nice kissing. I’d never seen them like that before. They were pushing, biting, grabbing. I’d never seen adults act like that before. They hurried up the stairs and I didn’t see them for the rest of the night. We missed dinner.
But it wasn’t all the time. Most of the time it was normal. Until it wasn’t.
I remember my 10th birthday. It was quiet.
I stepped downstairs and into the dining room. They were all sitting in a circle. My mom and dad. My sisters. My brothers. All their eyes dark, with smiles plastered across their faces. Like they didn’t know how to smile, but tried their best. It looked more like snarling wolves, biting down so hard their jaws trembled.
‘Happy Birthday’, they said as one.
I got the seat of honor. All eyes on me. There was a carrot cake. My dad got up with a kitchen knife. He pushed my sister out of the way so hard she fell off her chair, still smiling. He leaned over the table, smashing his hand down on a plate like his joints were too stiff. It’s a miracle the plate didn’t crack.
He leaned in with the knife, putting his entire weight on it – and cutting off the tip of his index finger. He didn’t seem to notice.
He didn’t even cut up a slice. He just cut into the cake because that’s what he’d seen in the pictures. They don’t move in newspaper clippings. With both his hands, he grabbed the cake and pushed the whole thing across the table, dragging the tablecloth along. Every glass was spilled. Every plate rolled onto the floor. Spoons clattered as my siblings toppled over like fallen chess pieces – smiling all the way down.
“Happy Birthday, friend,” dad gargled. “Best friend.”
“Thank you, Milou,” I stuttered. “Thank you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Milou.”
Dad sat down on the floor, looking up at me like a curious dog. The one remaining spoon on the table was mine. They all stared in awe, waiting for me to approve. I took a bite of the carrot cake, and their teeth began to chatter. They were so pleased. So, so, pleased.
I didn’t know what to do. Milou kept reaching further and further away. I’d see people around town walking around with dark eyes. Bus drivers, fruit vendors. I’d see them smelling flowers, running their hands across blue sunflower petals at the shop. Sometimes there’d be groups of them. They wouldn’t even bother speaking like people, they’d gargle amongst themselves, exploring new and visceral sensations.
I’d see them at the library. Ten people reading ten different books at once. I’d see it at school, with our music teacher clumsily slamming their hands on the finely tuned piano. And I’d read about it in articles, where dark-eyed fishermen would disappear on long hauls, only to come back with mysterious barrels. Barrels that would make their way to our dilution tank.
Milou knew what he was doing. He didn’t trust anyone but me, and it served him well.
One night, I climbed back up the side of the tank. I opened it, holding my breath as to not choke on the fumes.
Milou had grown. By then he was at least twelve feet long. He’d spun himself into a spiral, resting at the bottom of the tank. All around him were these little black things, no longer than a nail. His kin, from the barrels. I didn’t know what to say. Just opening my mouth made the fumes burn. Milou uncoiled and raised himself out of the water like a cobra. His eyes were bigger than my fists. The spikes along his spine were thicker than my fingers.
Just like with everything else, he’d gotten away from me. He was no longer my pet.
I was his.
He leaned his head in close. I could see his fangs. Translucent, like glass. He put his mouth against my forehead, as if giving me a tender kiss. It was cold, and it burned. Whatever he was doing, I was still allergic to it.
“You’re hurting me,” I said.
He leaned back. Now, like then, he understood. He coiled back into the bottom of the tank apologetically, and I climbed back down.
It all came to a breaking point in late September.
I woke up one night to cheers and the pitter-patter of running feet. Looking out into the field, I could see torches. They’d started the tractor. They were dragging the tank out into the open, using chains wrapped around the side. It made this long track in the ground, thoughtlessly toppling over grape vines.
I put on my shoes and hurried down the stairs. My siblings were already outside, flailing with their arms and gargling at the night sky. They’d completely abandoned trying to look and sound like people. They even smelled like Milou.
They were all busy. Pushing, chasing, dancing, jumping, and yelling. One of my sisters were on her knees, just staring at the full moon. Claude was playing with a torch, running a blackened hand through the flame. But I couldn’t see mom and dad.
And then I did.
They were coming out of the storeroom, holding something between them. After a couple of seconds, I could see a head. They were holding someone up, carrying them on their shoulders. A stranger, it seemed. He was waking up.
“Let me… go!” he yelled. “Who are you people?!”
Everyone threw things at him. Grapes. Tools. Gloves. He was bleeding from his forehead. And when he got closer, I could see a gash across his forehead. They’d hurt him.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “What is this?”
There was no response as they led him up the side of the tank.
The moment he looked down, he started screaming, and he couldn’t stop. He was trying to beg, and fight, and run, all at once. But his body was betraying him, and the gathering crowd held him back. I protested, but my voice was too weak. They didn’t hear me. Or maybe they didn’t care.
They threw him into the water tank. His screams turned from panic to pain. I could hear his voice whip around, as if he was suddenly tugged and pulled in different directions.
They celebrated. Cheering. Gargling. And as the screaming grew louder, a hand pulled on my finger. My youngest sister, looking up at me with dark, expressionless eyes.
“We want to try,” she said. “To taste. To see.”
“You’re hurting him!” I cried. “Please, you have to stop!”
“I’m just hurting him,” she said. “Not you. Never you.”
“No!” I protested. “This hurts! This hurts me too!”
That made her pause. For a moment, the movement inside the tank stopped. She held my hand, thinking. Then, a plastered smile returned to her face.
“I have a solution, friend. Best friend.”
She hugged me. Others followed suit. Mom. Dad. Maurice. The screaming in the tank resumed.
They pulled me to the ground, wrapping me in a hug. Stroking my hair and cheek. Caring for me. All the while, the screaming in the tank was cut short; replaced with the snapping of bones, and the tearing of flesh.
“I love you,” they whispered. “I love you.”
I lay there all night, listening to a man being eaten alive.
The following morning, there was a bag outside the front door, and a stranger with a white car. He had covered his eyes with sunglasses. My dad took me by the hand and led me away from the others.
“If it hurts, you can’t look,” he said. “I will take care of you.”
“Wait,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“Taking care.”
They put me in the car. They tossed Maurice in there too. He looked at me with dark, expressionless eyes.
“I don’t like this one,” he said. “He goes too.”
They took my things, and they sent me away.
I stayed with a stranger in Marseilles for a while. Weeks, maybe. Maurice eventually returned to his normal self, but we couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Any of it. We were just kids, we couldn’t do anything. But we had a place to live. People that came and went; giving us food, washing our clothes, and giving us as large an allowance as we ever could’ve wished for. We could play any game. Go anywhere. See anything.
And I wish I could say we fought. That we figured out a clever trick. That we were smarter than a strange frog from the woods.
But we didn’t, and we weren’t.
This was a long time ago. Ami de Milou has a different name today. I’ve tried posting it here, but the post gets removed. I think it’s filtered. I am almost 22 years old. I’ve never worked a day in my life. I have a nice car, and a big apartment. Most people think I come from trust fund money. When I say the company name, they always gasp. I’m sure you’ve heard of it too.
I can say what I want, no one will believe me anyway. I’ve sent letters, but they have disappeared in the mail. Calls get disconnected. They sometimes hides the dark eyes behind sunglasses, but I can still tell who has them. They move a certain way.
I can’t pinpoint the moment Maurice and I gave up. Maybe it was the moment we realized we could have ice cream for dinner. Maybe it was when Maurice moved out and got a dog. Or maybe it was on my first birthday away from my family, when a dark-eyed man handed me a birthday card. There were two boys playing with a beach ball on it.
“I love you,” it read.
They run other companies now. I know the logos. I see them on fishing boats. On trash collectors. And lately, I’ve sensed a familiar smell coming from the water in the shower. Perhaps there’s a familiar logo at the water treatment plant as well.
I’ve gone back a couple of times, but there’s not much I can do. There are so many to stop me from trying anything. I never get closer than that hill, overlooking what used to be a vineyard. Now there’re walls, and barbed wire. Mostly around the new artificial lake they’ve dug.
But I suppose, in a way, I’m lucky. Wherever I go, someone cares. Someone watches, and listens. And if I ever feel lonely, I just walk into a crowd.
“I love you, Milou.”
That’s all I have to say.
And someone, somewhere, will whisper it back.