Twenty-seven hours before her decision to die, Nora Seed sits at home in night clothes, doom-scrolling and feeling isolated. The doorbell rings unexpectedly. She answers to find Ash, a kind acquaintance and surgeon, sweaty from a run and unusually tense.

After brief small talk about his upcoming half marathon, Ash asks about Nora’s cat, Voltaire. He carefully tells her he believes the cat is dead, likely hit by a car, having seen the name on the collar. The heaviness in his voice signals certainty.

Nora steps outside to Bancroft Avenue and finds Voltaire lying still by the curb, legs tucked as if mid-run. Her grief rises but is blunted by sertraline; she cannot cry. As she looks at the cat’s peaceful expression, she feels a troubling mix of sorrow and envy for the apparent release that death offers.

The moment compounds Nora’s loneliness and hopelessness, sharpening the trajectory toward her later decision, as the cat’s death becomes both a trigger and a symbol of escape.