At some point, surely I’ll be able to see this final event up ahead too, and we’ll know together how to stop it. But I can’t yet. I have two days in clear sight, no more, and shrinking …

One thing at a time, I guess.

Thank you for waiting for me, for looking for me, for having faith that I’d be here.

You know what you have to do.

We know what we have to do.

Why us, though? That’s the question, isn’t it? What has brought you and me together?

Why us?

How I wish I knew.

Out of the Blue?

It’s not yet dawn as he steps outside. He closes the front door silently and double checks it’s secure, that they are all safe. If he’s forgotten anything, too bad. His keys are inside – no need for those now. He turns round at the end of the weed-strewn pathway.

That’s my home, he thinks. That was my home. All my life.

Giving himself one last chance to prove he’s human, he waits a moment. And another moment after that. One last chance to feel, to feel something. Nostalgia, sorrow perhaps. He doesn’t. It’s no surprise.

Patten’s Island is perfectly quiet as he walks. The fog is thick, as grey and as salty and as freezing as the silent ocean that hides beyond it. The couple of working street lamps bleed into the mist, reminding him of Christmas lights bound with old man’s beard. Again, no nostalgia. No feeling. He’s dead already really.

He walks neither fast nor slow. No great hurry. No great fear. It’s below freezing but only his face feels it. There’s three hoodies beneath this puffer jacket and some fleecy trackie bottoms under his jeans – all knock-offs of expensive labels, of course. His choice of attire wasn’t made to be on-brand to the very last, but to be sure he doesn’t shiver and risk confusing the cold with nerves.

And actually, there are no nerves. He’s thought about this too many times. Fantasized, even. Recently, his days have become a negotiation: if nothing else gets added to this insurmountable wall of shit, maybe I won’t end it today. Just that simple promise takes some effort. Not that anyone else could possibly know how much it takes for him just to appear normal. His turmoil is entirely private, the devil-may-care attitude such a well-rehearsed show that surely no one could possibly see him behind the act.