He had chosen to arrive at 5pm exactly. He was never early, and never late: he had set his cracked leather watch—which he found in the roadside piles of tokens of the dead—to the morning news, to make sure it was always just right and to save any embarrassment. He checked it every day at eight in the morning, and in six years it had not skipped a single second.

She was stirring mincemeat with a wooden spoon, propped up against the kitchen island. At 5pm exactly, a noise penetrated the silence. She glanced up as the cuckoo clock began to cluck, exactly on schedule, as it did every day.

He stood in silent dismay as he felt his five rhythmic knocks being stolen by the clatter of the mechanical bird. Now he was late.