"THE 4 SOLDIERS" "The war began when few rich people remained." "All the rest were poor." "The army fought for the rich." "With nothing left to lose, the poor formed their own militias." "I was living with my parents when the fighting began." "They were killed early on, trying to protect me." "I stayed in the house, alone in my room... with them." "All alone, for several days... before joining a battalion." "We fought often." "We would win, we would lose, without really knowing why." "Hurry up, damn it!" "We're going to miss the party!" "Come on, move it!" "The war had become a habit." "It seemed unlikely to change... up until..." "Up until I met Mateo." "Let's take the house." "Look at this!" "This guy's messed up!" "Mateo was everything that I'm not." "And it was at that exact moment that I began to wonder if that was why I had followed him." "Come on!" "And I still wonder." "This is really cool, you'll see." "And it's not complicated." "Things were all right here, once." "They had gas and electricity." "And nice floors!" "These are some high-end products." "Luxury." "This is where they must have had their hot meals." "Hello!" "Hello!" "You guys look comfortable here." "So that's what I smelled earlier!" "I was right to come here..." "Maybe they'll give me some." "They just might!" "That's some good grub!" "Do you have anything to smoke?" "Take this." " What's your name?" " Big Max." " Big Mac!" " No!" "Not like the burger, like Maximilian." "But Big Max is better than Maximilian, because Maximilian is a little..." " A little..." " A little gay?" "Yeah, good night." "Good night." "The room was nothing like my old room at my parents, and yet it felt very familiar." "Painful memories came back to haunt me." "Thankfully, there was another room." "Good night, boys!" "By forcing me to sleep there," "Max made me relive my parents death once and for all, and see them again, before the war, when they were alive and well." "You're not eating?" "Do you want to stay with us?" "Fear came back in an instant, but it was different than before." "For the first time since..." "For the first time, I wasn't only afraid for myself." "By midwinter, we were losing more often." "We had to retreat to the countryside." "The battalion's morale sank... but ours stayed strong." "It was easier together." "Hello, everyone." "The Committee has decided that it's time to recruit." "For now, the orders are to wait." "That's it." "Your unit leaders will let you know when the situation changes." "See you later." "Hang in there!" ""Hang in there!"" "What does it look like we're doing?" "It'd be so cool if they stationed us here!" " Really?" " Shit, yeah!" "With all the material out here, we could finally build a real cabin!" "What?" "We're going to build a cabin with a truck for a living room!" "And a car for a kitchen!" "And the bedroom will be a..." "What kind of car will the bedroom be, Max?" " What kind of car?" " The bedroom..." "All right, everybody, we're setting up camp here." "Where did that big slacker go?" "We'll never finish before nightfall." "Not if it's just the two of us." "We need to find help, or else we're in deep shit." " Oh yeah?" " Yeah." "Pretty much everyone has grouped off already." "The guy with the dreads over there, that's Kevin, right?" " Do you know him?" " Yeah." "He's a great shot." "I've never heard anyone complain about him." " Have you seen Max?" " No." "Check it out!" "It's not a car, but could we use it as a bedroom?" "Yeah!" "Not bad, Max!" "Do you think there's enough room for him too?" "There's room for two of him!" "When we finished building the cabin, all we could think of was Kevin." "But we weren't worried." "Not at all." "There had to be four of us, and he was the fourth." "Hello, my love!" "Happy birthday!" "I have a little present for you." "Not bad, eh?" " You want it, don't you?" " Yeah!" " Yeah!" " Too bad." "It's mine!" "I'm the one who found it!" "When the four of us went to bed that night, I thought:" ""This is it." "I'm done with being alone. "" "I told myself..." "Rather, I told my parents:" ""Don't worry about me, I have friends, now. "" "It was a long, cold winter, but our cabin held up, and so did we." "We were together all the time." "Not once did we get on each other's nerves." "Not once were we bored." "Don't you think you should save that gas?" " What is it?" " It smells." " Like what?" " Like water." "The pond was like a gift that the war had given us." "We accepted it without feeling guilty, because we deserved it." "I had never felt time pass the way it did that day." "I thanked the pond for appearing to us." "This isn't going to work." "That pond is ours." "No one else can find it." "Let's not carve out a trail." "We'll split up, OK?" "Max, go that way." "Dominique, Kevin..." "I'm going this way." " Whose turn is it?" " Mine!" "Hang on, let's give Kevin a chance." "You want it, Kevin?" " No." " He doesn't want it." "It's mine!" "Wait!" "Why don't you want it?" "Do you have a problem with girls, Kevin?" "Maybe he just doesn't like girls." "Maybe he's never..." "Good night." "Good night, guys." "You like that, eh, big guy?" "Unlike Kev!" "Come with me." "Where are you going?" "Go back to sleep, it's all right." "I had a dream." "What kind of dream?" "I dreamed about Kevin." "I dreamed that he slit my throat." "He slit your throat?" " How..." " Jesus, he slit my throat!" "With a knife!" "It's not complicated!" "Do you need me to paint a picture?" "He slit my throat!" " Where did it happen?" " In the cabin." "Two slashes in a row, from behind." "Kevin isn't..." "He couldn't do that." "Well, in my dream..." "Had he stayed a minute longer, I'd have known what to say to him." "Or maybe not." "OK, kids!" "It's requisition day!" "It's your turn!" "Move it, if you want to eat at noon." "Come on, get dressed." "Let's go!" "I'll wait for you outside!" "Hurry up!" "Come on, Big Max." "Wake up." "He was scared last night." "It didn't show." "It was probably better that the others didn't know." "I was sort of proud to be the only one to know about his nightmare." " What?" " Nothing." "That's it, lard-ass!" "That's it!" "Right, Big Max?" "This way, lard-ass!" "Over here!" "Come on, my dear lard-ass!" "Move!" "Where are you, lard-ass?" "Yo, Dominique!" "Over here!" "Yeah!" "You OK?" "It's going to feel like you're swimming, but you're in no danger." "Go!" " You all right?" " Yeah!" "You OK?" "You're really good!" "OK, again!" " No, no!" " Yeah!" "Move your arms!" "And just like that, the pond became part of our cabin, like another room;" "the main room, actually, where the war didn't exist, and where we could enjoy what was developing between us." "Mateo..." "Let's just say it's my turn, OK?" "Is this what you want?" "Have fun!" "Hello, my love!" "Happy birthday!" "I have a little present for you." "She'd never do that again if she could see you now, Big Max!" "I'll trade you a joint for it." " Two." " One." "Max!" "Don't you owe me a joint?" "Thank you!" "Whose turn will it be tomorrow?" "Mine, if Kevin doesn't want it." "Damn it!" "It was a good idea to wash them." "It was a good idea, like all our other ideas..." "Family first." "Here." "Thanks." "I was relieved for a while." "I was his friend, and I was there for him." "I was a friend he could wake up in the middle of the night." "Then, all of a sudden, I started thinking..." "What if it were me in his dream, instead of Kevin?" "Get up, kids!" "Get up!" "We did our chores!" "Can't you just let us be?" "Get up!" "This isn't a chore, it's something else." " Like?" " Teamwork." "A special mission for you guys." "You're going to take him in and show him the ropes." "His name's Gabriel Tardif, right?" "Gabriel Tardif." "No." "Find another group or take him back to his mom, where he should be." "I'm not here for your opinion." "It's an order." "You'll be happy to have him by your side when the shit hits the fan." "And believe me, that day's coming sooner than you think!" " Teach him..." " We're not teaching him anything!" "We don't want him and we don't have enough room." "We're breaking camp soon, so hurry up and show him the ropes!" "Go get breakfast." "You don't want him to see the pond?" "If we leave here soon, we'll never go back there at all." "We left for the pond, thinking we'd lose Gabriel along the way." "He didn't know the camp, and we were sure he'd get sidetracked along the way." "And it almost worked." "We took him along with us, far from the pond." "Come on, get the dice out!" "You want to lose, lard-ass?" "I'm going to cream you!" "I'm going to win that pot back, Kev!" "Where'd the kid go?" " He's writing." " Writing what?" "Write that Big Max is nothing but a big lard-ass!" "No!" "Don't write that!" "Write that I'm going to beat Mateo at dice and..." "Come on!" "It's my turn!" "I'm going to roll until I get more points than him!" " Write that Big Max is a cheater!" " No, don't write that!" "What are you doing?" "Show me what you've got, boy!" "Give him a shot to the ribs!" "Now you can write it." "It's true, I am a cheater!" "It's your turn." "Nothing." "Your turn." "Did you write what I told you about that lard-ass?" "I'm talking to you!" "Did you write what I said about him?" "Instead of writing about how Max cheated," "I wished that Gabriel could've written about the rain on the pond." "Even if it meant getting soaked to the bone." "Write that he's making our ears bleed, too." " Are you guys talking about me?" " No, no." "Quit messing with me." "I heard you!" "What'd you say?" "Watch the road when you're driving, will you?" "Copy that, 10-4." "On the way back, I prayed for my parents to help us." "Specifically, to help Mateo solve the problem of Gabriel and the pond." "I prayed to them harder than I'd ever prayed to them before." "Afer that, Gabriel settled into our room without any problems." "But the iPod..." "It was too early for that." "Mateo..." "What?" "Nothing..." "It's silly." "I'd love to hear something silly." "Go ahead." "It's way too silly." "Even better." "In your dream, is it always Kevin who..." "Yeah." "If it was me instead of Kevin, in your dream, who was..." "How would we get past that?" "Afer all we'd been through, I would've liked him to yell at me for having dared to think of taking Kevin's place in his nightmare." "But..." "I don't know." "I don't know what we'd do." "For the first time since we'd all gotten together," "I woke up alone." "And I started thinking." "I just couldn't help it." "I thought something terrible had happened." "But everything was calm." "There was nothing unusual." "But I was sure that something terrible had happened... or was going to happen." "Are we leaving?" "You're going to be blown away!" "He's never seen it!" "Do it for him!" " He doesn't care!" " No, he'll write all about it!" "Come on, Kev, you can do it!" "I'm sure you can!" "All right, all right..." " You ready?" " Yeah." "Jesus!" "I knew it!" "I knew it, man!" "With your eyes covered, too!" "That was nice!" "That was nice?" "Was that nice, Dom?" "Did you see that?" "Holy shit, he's fast!" "And with his eyes covered!" "Enjoy it while you can." "Our time here is almost up." "We're leaving tomorrow night." "The news that we were leaving lef us feeling empty." "We walked for hours without going anywhere." "We were all thinking about the pond, but no one wanted to go, for fear that it might be just as sad as we were." "So you're writing to your mom?" "Who are you writing to, then?" "I'm not writing to anyone." "You guys didn't hit a single bird?" "We were unlucky." " Happy, now?" " Yeah!" " You look like a cowboy!" " No, I'm an Indian!" "OK, Indian, it's Kevin's turn!" " No, a little longer." " Everybody gets a turn!" "OK." "Stop, horse." " You want to get on?" " Yeah." "I'm a good rider, eh, Mateo?" "You're a good rider, Big Max!" "He likes you." "He's walking sideways." "Kevin's smile, the horse walking calmly behind Max," "Mateo and Gabriel walking side by side... everyone was exactly where they belonged." "He's my friend!" "It was like the horse was leading us away from the war... forever." "OK, let's switch!" "Who's up?" " Dominique, you want to ride?" " Yes!" "Come, I'll help you up!" " OK, lift!" " 1, 2, 3, go!" "I don't think you can have your turn." "It's no one's fault." "Our time with the horse helped take our minds off the war." "We went back to the pond without feeling bad." "Nothing better than pork!" "And nothing more annoying." " Annoying?" " Yeah." "Especially when the porker plays dice!" "It'll attract fish." "You can't be writing to no one." "Who are you writing to?" "Myself." "Yourself?" "What are you writing?" "Yesterday, he wrote that I won at dice!" "Look after your fish, lard-ass!" "What are you writing?" "Well..." "I write about what I see." "But not everything you see." "Give me an example." "Guys, I've got one!" "I knew it!" "It's awesome!" "It's beautiful!" "Come see, Kev!" "Look at this!" " Not bad, Big Max!" " Not bad!" "Not bad at all!" "The pond's effect wore off as soon as we got back to camp, and the next day's departure took up all the time we had left." "I ate pig and fish in the same day, so now, in my stomach, there's a pig with fins, and it tickles!" "It was a good thing Max was there." "Here." "Why don't I ever get it?" "OK, give her a little kiss before bedtime." "What is that?" " Hey!" " No!" " Give it!" " A little longer!" "Your turn's coming." "What did you write today?" "I wrote that you shot at some birds, but didn't bring a single one down." "That's true." "Did you write that we stole a horse?" "Yeah." "That's good." "You shouldn't tell lies." "I said that it ran away before everyone had a turn." "Did you write about Kevin taking his rifle apart with his eyes closed?" "You should have." "Wouldn't you like it if he wrote about that, Kevin?" "Yeah, I don't know." " You wouldn't have liked it?" " Honestly, I would have." "You see?" "He wants you to write about it." "So you'll write about it, OK?" "At the end, I wrote that we still had a good day." "And it was true." "My God, was it true." "The next day, we got up and left early, without eating." "We were in a hurry to have one last day of relaxation, far from the war." "Let's get it out of there!" "On "go"!" "1, 2, 3, go!" "Come on, Max!" "What are you doing?" "Is there a problem?" "Are you afraid of a dead horse?" "Is that it, you're afraid?" "You're afraid of the dead horse?" "Say something!" "You're afraid of dead horses!" "That's not so hard to say, is it?" "You're afraid because you've never seen one before." "He's never seen one." "He's never seen one, and neither have you." "You haven't either, right?" "You haven't, and neither have I!" "You see horses all the time, huh?" "You see horses, and they're always alive!" "But where do they bury all the dead horses?" "Where the hell are they?" "We can't know where they are, Mateo, because no one knows." "Once again, I couldn't say what he needed to hear." "I let the pond do it for me." "I told myself:" ""The pond will make him forget about the night to come. "" "It had never been so calm or so pretty... and that's how Gabriel would describe it, I was sure." "And I looked at the spot where the horse had died, knowing that, like it or not, it would also end up in his book." "We'll stay here!" "What do you think?" "They can eat shit!" "Let them find other idiots to march all night in the cold!" " Really?" " Yeah." "Tonight and every other night." "We like it here!" "Right, Max?" "No doubt!" "We should stay here instead and eat fish!" " Those fish aren't very big!" " They'll grow!" "Yeah!" "If there are small ones, that means there are big ones!" "There's corn everywhere." "We have everything we need here." "What do you think?" "What do I think..." "We have the Winnebago for when it rains." "We have our weapons." "We can do some requisitioning if we want." "We don't need them!" "We don't need anyone!" "They don't know we're here!" "Not a soul knows where we are!" "Before they shoot us, they'll have to find us first." "Guys, I got one!" "Come see!" "Not bad, huh?" "Let's cook it up before we go back to camp, OK?" "OK, Max." "Let's do that." "Don't forget to put this in your journal, OK?" "What is it?" "It's too small, is that it?" "Yeah, it's too small." "Making a big fire, washing our coats, being surprised by how different we all are, yet how perfect we are for each other." "With each step, I wished we could have one more day at the pond." "Then, I had the urge to hold them in my arms, one after the other." "That's how scared we were, how lost we were," "how sad we were." "But I held back so we wouldn't be laughed at." "Now, I regret not having done it... because it makes me even sadder." " We're stopping, boys!" " Stop!" "Guys!" "I'm over here!" "Dominique!" " We're here, Max!" " Mateo?" "Hello!" "Hey, Kev!" "Gabriel!" "Let's make a fire!" "You OK, kid?" "Let it out." "Where's the iPod?" "Kiss it." "You too, go ahead." "Come on!" "Have some more." "Come on!" "Wake up, on your feet!" " Come on, up!" " We're leaving in five minutes!" "It's time!" "We're leaving in five minutes!" "It's coming from over there!" "Quick, hide!" "I can't see them!" "They're waiting for us to move so they can fire at us." "Easy!" "It's going to be all right." "It'll be OK." "Max, take the kid and go hide behind the container." "Go!" "It'll be all right, Kevin." "Close your eyes!" "Close your eyes, Kevin." "Easy, it'll be all right." "Knock it off, Max." "Stop it, Max!" "Shut up, lard-ass!" "When I realized that Gabriel was only pretending to write," "I was angry at first... that he had betrayed us." "But when I understood that he did it so that we'd keep him around..." "I thought that he was right to want to stay with us... that we were worth the trouble." "Then, I figured that our story had to be written down... before it ceased to exist." "Now, I've written everything I can about us." "Everything Gabriel should've written." "It's impossible for me to continue... because there's no way to know if there's another smile like Kevin's out there." "Or to know what's left of Gabriel." "Or what Mateo and Max are doing today." "The future has no end." "But I have to stop... because I'm tired." " Where's the iPod?" " It's here." "Come and get it."