THE BOOK!

Read below for an up-to-date version of the book Hugo is writing with Nick’s help (SPOILERS):

In the dark halls of the Maceration Building, a controversial child is born. The stand-in sage-femme clutched the baby by the head, neck, and body, still glistening with schmutz and baby dirt. Her hands were rough, like they had pulled one thousand roots from the ground, and in dire need of moisturising. As she stands beside the mother, who was gently resting her head on the cobbles, a man dressed in the finest silks this side of Istanbul inspects the child. The sage-femme hands the child over. The man nods. As the mother reaches up to take her child back, the silken man turns away, his cape fluttering, taking the child with him.

The clock strikes twelve as Jean Silkman strides through the doors of the masceration hall and into the night, baby in arms outstretched. A banshee scream echoes into the night and dissipates in the wind. Back in the dim lights of the birthing chamber,  the Sage-Femme says, ‘Don’t be a baby, it is just an Enfant’. Though the flame of humanity in her eyes betrays the sentiment. The mother is certain he will kill the baby.

15 YEARS LATER

As Jean-Baptiste Duvalle stepped out of the train into a whisper of sunlight, he knew he was about to be shot. A glint of metal stared him down like an untold secret, like a story waiting with bated breath for its final denouement. Jean-Baptiste froze like the bored faces of the statues found around his parents’ mansion. This was the first time he had seen a gun outside of a game or a film. It didn’t seem real, it looked smaller than he imagined, like a toy car in the hands of an adult. A click, and a stream of liquid ejaculated from the end of the device, soaking him from head to toe. Jean Baptiste laughed.

Stood before him in blue overalls, checkered slip-ons, a tie, and no collar to his shirt, was a clown. It grimaced at him, maybe almost as if it were about to cry. Jean-baptiste relaxed and cracked a smile, almost forgetting why he had come to the city. Ahead of him was an arduous task born of necessity. But why did he have to come on clown college graduation day? It seems a little suspicious, doesn’t it? If you sense that, then maybe you’re a little sharper than Jean-Baptiste, so focused on his all-consuming task. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to catch what’s about to happen before he does. 

Etampes boasts a magnificent array of architecture, from the 12th-century ruins of Louis VI’s tower to the fine Romanesque spires of the crenellated walls. Jean-baptiste, still a little moist from his squirtin,g made his way down the narrow streets towards the Anne de Pisseleu Hotel, situated in the heart of the city. It was the baker's dozen of cathedrals, and the religious underpinnings they represented, that drew Jean-Baptiste to this city. While he enjoyed the sight of these edifices, it was not without a sense of trepidation that he passed by their fine and mighty wooden doors. He walked up to the first of these doors and with a piece of red chalk he had carried for three long years, he drew the outline of a bull. 

And so he went church by church, cathedral by cathedral, leaving marks on each door, with his red chalk. This was his first season, and though his prelate remarked that this may feel quite antiquated, he said that it played a vital and important role in the task at hand. The prelate also said, this is the 600th time that the order had achieved its goals, and they had become exceedingly good at it. Jean Baptiste was surprised when he heard this, he didn’t peg the prelate as a fan of the Matrix, particularly of some of the less well-received sequels. He still had a few hours to kill before Benjamin arrived. What should he do now? He wandered by a small cafe ‘Cafe du Depart’ and decided to stop for a drink. He sat down on the terrace and ordered. The lithe waiter, happy Jean Baptiste wasn’t dressed as a clown, or toting a camera, map and bucket hat as so many British tourists did in this season, exclaimed how pleased he was to have a true-blooded Frenchman on his terrace. Jean Baptiste laughed to himself internally, leaned forward conspiratorially and said, ‘Monsieur, je ne suis pas français…’, placing the red chalk on the table. 

The waiter’s eyes widened, and he took a step back. “Oh, monsieur…” he stuttered. Jean-Baptiste nodded to him, confirming what he knew must be warring in his mind. Was this really it? Was this the moment he had been prepared for ever since he was a boy? Jean-Baptiste could picture it as though he had experienced it himself. The waiter, a mere twelve years old, told by his father that one day a man would appear to him with a piece of red chalk and utter that specific phrase. He didn’t know why, but he promised his father that if it should happen, then on that day, he would need to give that man a letter.

Jean-Baptiste held out his hand, waiting to receive it.

Dear My Child, 

As you well should know by now, you have been tasked with a mighty tribulation. But I, your father Jean Silkman know the difficulties that lie ahead of you, as I too have suffered them. You may be wondering why the subterfuge of a letter received via a lithe waiter, well this is because the forces that you are up against work their way into every facet of society, yet have a distinct distaste for the service industry. I have heard say it is the smell of cleaning detergent and proximity to hard spirits that they find so appalling. You find yourself in the town of Etamps, and your prelate will have informed you of its importance in this whole affair. Now this town has ancient roots, and not just the kingly abodes, but roots that draw deeper than you could possibly know. You must find, and i cannot state this clearly enough, you MUST find the Graduate, in order to progress on your mission. Consider this your first trial - a trial that may take your lifetime, or if luck would have it, a couple of hours (maybe). Most importantly of all, remember that I love you a bit, and though I may not be there in person right now, I still exist and am out there in the world somewhere. Now go! Stop drinking that tiny coffee, it was too expensive anyway! 

Love, Dad

P.S. You will have forgotten your toothbrush so go to a pharmacy and pick one up. 

Jean Baptiste was surprised by the tear that had appeared on his cheek. He hated his father. He knew that. So why, why, did he feel this way? 

Before he had a chance to fully interrogate that thought, the Post Office behind him exploded.

A wave crashes down onto a pebbly beach. Waves this size had not been seen in decades. Surfers and swimmers alike dot the giant waves like stars against a black sky. Bodies being thrown into the ocean with such force that it was rare to see one break the surface again. A miasma of sound deafens onlookers as seafoam and flotsam tears the world asunder. The cobbled beach littered with debris - a bent lamp post - tables and chairs - floor like up turned nails. Brick and stone. Faces wade into sight from the black emptiness of vision. A cry of a child heard from miles away. Sickness deep in the stomach with nowhere to go.

The Lithe Waiter

Three Hours Earlier

The room was dark, and icy cold. The door had slammed behind him as he entered, his breath rose in the air before him. He knew if he didn’t do something soon, he would surely be forgotten and would freeze to death. Feeling around in the dark for the familiar, he found a metallic beam and clasped it between his hands. With this anchor point, he pushed onwards, ice cold and slimy objects brushed his numbing fingers, tessellated vegetation drove images of horror in his mind. Finally he reached what he was looking for, a slab of congealed fat, wrapped in greasy paper. ‘Ah’ he exclaimed under his breath ‘The Butter!’ With both hands, frozen hands, he lifted the object and scooped it under his arm. In the sheer darkness the object felt huge. Hands back on his icy repairs, he made his way back whence he came. Fumbling in the dark, he felt the familiar bumpy relief of the walk in fridge door and began to slam crying ‘Chef Chef, J’ai trouver le beurre’... What felt like an eternity passed, until the brightness and bustle of the kitchen of the Cfe du Depart burst into view. A man in whites and sporting a giant moustache that curled far to often to be real, grabbed the slab from the Lithe Waiters arm and exclaimed ‘You idiot! You have heated ze butter up!’ The kitchen fell silent. You could cut the tension in the room with a knife, much lik ehow the chef wanted his butter: to be sliced like tension in a room, smooth like a teen on heelys, gliding across fresh tarmac.

Once he’d handed Chef the butter, he was surprised by the way the remnants felt on his lithe skin. It moved in ways that fluid should not, up when he expected it drip down. He took a step back, glancing in horror as the fat worked its way up his arm, past his elbow.
“Er, Chef?” He asked, voice trembling.

“What iz it, you silly man?”

“Are we sure this is butter?”
The Chef looks at the congealed brick in his hand, looks at it properly for the first time, and lets out a milkcurdling scream.

‘What are you doing to my butter you idiot?!’ squeeled the piggy chef. 

“Chef, what do you mean” sputtered the lithe waiter as he fell to the floor, scrabbling at his arm as the butter slowly enveloped his elbow, steadily moving upwards. like from that scene in the matrix where Neo touches the mirror. 

In an equally piglin voice the chef cries “do you not know this is Beurre d’isigny?! The finest butter of france? Not the shit you buy from Super U!?’

‘But I don’t understa-’

‘But Chef I don’t understand. You will always refer to me a chef you little pig’

‘But Chef I don’t understand what is happening!’

The butter had reached his shoulder at this point, rising rapidly towards the Lithe Waiters throat. Panic was setting in, no amount of rubbing or scrubbing would stop the butter from spreading, as though pasted across a hot piece of sour dough bread. You may be wondering, and yes it is true, the litheness of the waiter was wearing thin faced with this buttery conundrum. The chef, gestured to one of his line cooks “You! Take him away and clean him up! And don’t you dare lose a gram of that butter!”

The line cook — Emilie — lifted him to his feet, keeping his buttery arm at a distance. “Come on,” she muttered. “You’ll probably lose the arm, but at least you’ll still be able to flip the crepes.” 

The lithe waiter let out a sob.