Mum Was Adamant: Short Fiction
Dad died two years ago, so it fell to me to take Mum. I bought the tickets on the EasyJet website just a few weeks before we went. We got a good price — just £150 for the two of us. It was snowing when we landed; a pristine white February morning. It was almost beautiful.
We took a taxi to the hotel, had dinner together, then went to bed. And the following morning I went with her to the clinic. Another taxi and a room every bit as white as the previous day’s snow.
There, they set her up in a chair and explained to her the procedure. What she needed to do; what would happen to her when she did it.
“It’s a potent cocktail of drugs, but you won’t feel a thing.”
She nodded along gently—vaguely—but I knew she understood. She was waiting with anticipation for the moment when she would finally have control back firmly in her frail hands — the first time in several years.
And then she died, too. Or, perhaps more accurately, she killed herself. It had to be her who did it, of course — for legal reasons.
I didn’t cry; I had been expecting it. I hadn’t immediately been on board with the idea, but she had been absolutely adamant. In the months before we went, we did some research. I watched a documentary about one man’s decision to go to Switzerland to die. The crew…
