Petre was brilliant with animals and awkward with humans. The creatures didn’t mind the stutter, the constant humming, or the red wool hat that drooped over one eye. Petre found that the mannerisms of humans were indecipherable, but the wag of a tail, the lick of a lip, the shuffle of a hoof, those Petre understood.
When their parent announced that fourteen cousins were hiking down the mountain to escape the worst winter in memory, Petre figured they could hide out in the barn like they usually do; go about their routine feeding the chickens at first light, milking the cows at dusk, and releasing their bowels promptly before bed, unperturbed.
The cousins arrived in waves: couples, throuples, a child on every other hip, dogs trailing on heels. Albert and Angeline, Berta, Berenice, and Boris. Felix, Felipe, Forrest, and Fenix. Petre stopped paying attention; there were too many opinions about who was allergic to what, and who was frightened of animals, and who could and could not sleep near the fire.
One cousin stood out. Clara was enormously, gloriously pregnant, and the way she carried herself told Petre she was growing twins. Humans, it turned out, weren’t so different from the creatures Petre cared for.
Which was useful, because Clara, her husband Charles, and their three small children were the ones banished to the barn. Everyone else either had hay fever, a fear of wings, or an aversion to wood stoves. Petre moved their blanket to the loft and made a bed in the hay for the newcomers. That night, hummed to sleep beside the cow and the dog, the whole family slept deeply.
The tiny children, Carol, Carl, and Carlota, could have passed for triplets. They all spoke a babbling language only their parents understood, which was just fine to Petre. They took to their older cousin instantly. Over the next days, Petre worked around the small shadows trailing them: plucking a nut from Carlota’s nose, scrubbing cowpie off Carl’s fingers, prying Carol’s mouth off the donkey’s tail. Humming them to sleep at night.
On the third night, as the winter storm howled mercilessly, Petre tucked the triplets next to the sleeping heap of dog, cow, and pig, and prepared to venture outside for their nightly poo.
The wind nearly drowned out Clara’s sharp cry.
She was braced against the water basin, knuckles white, the puddle at her feet not from the trough. Charles bolted upright, panicking despite the three previous rehearsals. Petre shut the door. There was no need to send Charles into the storm; they’d only find his frozen corpse in the spring.
Petre kept the fire in the stove going all night, the soft orange glow highlighting Clara’s discomfort with each growing contraction. Petre heated water, calmed Charles, calmed the pig, calmed themselves — humming, always humming. And somewhere behind the humming, a quieter, more urgent pressure began to build.
By dawn, the storm was softening. Clara rested against Charles with newborn Carlie at her breast. Petre wrapped the smaller twin and laid xem in her free arm.
“Cetre,“ Clara whispered.
For one perfect moment, the barn was silent. Petre gazed into Clara’s wide eyes and smiled shyly before the deep hum rose in their throat.
Then the door slammed open. Petre’s parent shrieked. The triplets bolted awake. The remaining cousins stampeded down from the house until the wall beams bowed outward. The camera came out.
The flash went off.
Albert wept and sneezed at the hay.
Berenice screamed as a white chicken erupted into flight just behind her.
Felix, too close to the stove, caught fire.
And Petre, at last, could hold back no longer.
Months later, when the film was developed, Clara and Charles laughed over the chicken, the spittle of a magnificent sneeze, the flaming cousin. And then noticed, in the far corner, a figure in a red wool hat. Trousers around their ankles. A perfect coil of poo steaming beneath them.
They told the story to anyone who’d listen, warmth in their voices as they expressed their gratitude to Petre even when they weren’t around to hear it. That winter, Clara’s sister carved a tiny barn complete with animals, family, and one small figure with their trousers down. First, one neighbor admired the adorable scene and created their own. Then a traveling tinker insisted on purchasing one to bring across the mountain. The story spread, each telling of it embellishing and changing in the various regions.
The photograph is lost. The chicken is forgotten. The donkey a distant memory. The pig a relic of times long past. The barns now hold plastic toys and angels and demons and all manner of invented things.
But every single one holds a hand-carved figure in a red wool hat, trousers around their ankles, a perfect coil of poo steaming beneath them.
That is how Petre became the only person in history to be immortalized mid-poop.