Kingfisher

The Autumn Fall

Everything seemed to move slowly on the morning of the 8th. Michael struggled to sleep the night before, like a child before Christmas. Claire passed out mindlessly as she had done for weeks now. He came to meet her at her house. She opened the door wearing a grey t-shirt and jeans; her face was ashen and colourless and her expression blank. Even standing in a t-shirt it was obvious that she was about to die of starvation and Michael was unable to avoid averting his gaze from her when she walked.

Mostly through Claire leaning on Michael and without a word spoken by either of them they passed along Castle Gardens, Cecil Row, King Street and Lock Road, finally reaching the Victoria Transport Hub. The buildings of Acelmouth passed by alongside them just as slowly as they walked. Identical, middle-class Tory houses; identical, middle-class Tory houses; a flatpacked shopping centre with a postmodern name; more identical, middle-class Tory houses. Their route to the station didn't pass by anything else.

Michael began to wonder if the silence meant that she suspected something. 'Sweetheart, are you OK?' he asked carefully. He felt disgusted with himself for using affectionate terms with her but knew that he just had to keep it together for another two hours or so; then she would dead and he would be in a position to process what had happened.

She nodded. 'Yeah, I'm good,' she replied blandly. 'I'm–' Her mouth curled into a slightly sadistic smile. 'I hope it's fun.'

'Well I doubt it'll be that fun, dear,' he said, managing to imitate his usual self rather well given the circumstances. 'It's watching a policy-focused speech, after all.'

She sniggered mirthlessly for a second or two, as if laughing at some private joke that she didn't really think had any right to be funny. 'Hmm, I suppose so,' she said.

Michael tried to ignore how unsettling she was being. Perhaps the starvation was having some sort of an effect on her brain. That would seem logical. He wondered why he hadn't done any research into that beforehand. Perhaps he never truly accepted that this situation was real and that he would be living through it. Or perhaps he just never thought about it and there he couldn't hide behind the notion that he never thought it would be real.

After both spending a moment standing silently and still in the lobby, Claire leaning on Michael for physical support, they moved forwards into the railway station. He went to the counter alone, leaving Claire on a bench for a moment—'I'm just gonna quickly buy our tickets, sweetheart'—and spent the money that Toby had lent him almost a year ago.

He sat down next to Claire on the bench. She seemed to be more conscious for a while because she took his hand and smiled at him—in fact, he could have sworn that it was a reassuring smile. Michael began to think that he was going crazy. At some moments he felt as though she was like an animal with no sentience left at all; at other moments he thought that she knew precisely what was going on but had forgiven him for it.

The truth was more complicated. Claire was certainly still awake and alive and she certainly knew what this day meant, but her memory was hazy and she was extremely tired. In a sense that reminded her that she was about to die but it also obscured the question of agency. It was harder to recall that Michael, who she loved so much, was the one killing her: particularly when it felt as though she was about to die of her own volition. But she remembered that she'd wanted to die and she'd remembered that Michael was going to do it, so she assumed that he must have been doing it for her. For that she was grateful.

The two of them sat and waited in more silence, though occasionally punctuated by Claire building up enough strength or Michael building up enough nervous tension for the one to squeeze the other's hand. When the train finally arrived it crashed into their awareness like a tidal wave; a heavy, sudden and aggressive appearance of movement, loud sound and a sharp smell of diesel. Claire was not up to the sudden movements necessary to board a Thameslink train and Michael had to half-lift her from the bench and practically drag her across the platform, but by the time they reached the train itself she was using her own shaky strength to push herself up onto the step and into the carriage.