Jean nodded.
At the park bench, an old man sat down beside him. “Beautiful day,” the man said. je m en fous
Jean sat on the bathroom floor. He said the words aloud for the first time: “Je m’en fous.” Jean nodded
Jean had spent forty-seven years trying to care. He cared about deadlines, about his mother’s opinion, about the chipped paint on his front door. He cared so much that his shoulders were permanently curved inward, as if bracing for a falling sky. Jean sat on the bathroom floor
The old man exhaled. “You know,” he said quietly, “you’re the first person today who didn’t tell me it’ll be okay.”
He never became a monk or a philanthropist. He never had a grand epiphany. But when he went home that night, he didn’t turn on the TV. He opened the window. He heard the neighbor’s baby crying, the distant train, Bébert purring from the armchair.
Jean looked at him. Really looked. The man’s hands were clean but trembled. His eyes had that drowned quality Jean recognized from his own bathroom mirror.