Reading this poster, Will feels like a truant come face to face with a police officer. ‘It’s a fair cop,’ he’s tempted to say.

Will checks the time. Thirty-nine minutes still. He knows what he should do.

Reality

She realizes it almost immediately. Something has gone wrong.

There’s no sense of panic, just a recognition of the plain fact that this procedure has not gone to plan.

‘Cardiodenisine,’ the doctor had explained before they started, Nain’s pulse drawing an irregular line on the screen beside the bed. ‘You’ll notice the drug taking effect pretty much immediately.’

The nurse had gripped the syringe in two purple-gloved hands and awaited the order. ‘Don’t you worry, my love,’ she said.

Nain hadn’t been worrying. She gave up worry some decades ago when she realized it never had any bearing on the outcome.

‘It’ll take a few seconds for your heartbeat to begin slowing,’ the doctor had said. ‘There will be a brief period of time for which the heart will be asystolic.’

‘Not beating,’ the nurse had whispered.

‘At which point,’ the doctor had explained, ‘the heart’s own sinus rhythm will restart. Less than a minute from now, we should have everything back to normal for you.’

That was more than a minute ago. Much more.

‘Any questions before we start?’ the doctor had asked.

Nain had smiled. Even if she did have any questions, she wouldn’t have asked them. Born to a family of farm labourers in rural Wales, she was brought up into a working class that knew its place. And she may have left that life behind at the age of sixteen, but certain habits die hard, not least the awe and unquestioning respect that she was always taught to have for men of the clergy, veterinary surgeons and, most importantly, doctors.

‘Thank you,’ she had muttered into her mask.

A nod had been given, the syringe unloaded.

And it has gone wrong.

She hadn’t expected to feel her heart stopping, but she did. But then, she now peacefully thinks, of course she would. There it’s been, like the pendulum in a clock, back and forth within her ribcage, for over seventy-nine years. Just as everything she’s ever done can be measured in seconds, hours or months, so those years could be measured by beats of that heart. And now it beats no more.

Time has stopped.

She doesn’t wish to rush to this conclusion. The final few beats were irregular, like the thrashings of a drowning woman. The very last one was a solid thump. Defiant. A bowing out. And she waited. And waited. By the time panic seemed appropriate, panic was no longer available to her. At peace, she thinks. What a cliché, but still …