Autumnal

We met in autumn. 

She was a child of the season — her red hair and porcelain complexion were so picturesque amongst the dying landscape. It should have been easier to understand that she was indeed dying too. Nothing beautiful in this world can last forever, and Jane became one of those tragedies that the mortal world so easily casts out.

Autumn is my prison you see. It’s a prison of kisses and coffees, of sex and supernatural beauty. Beauty which transcends the earth– beauty which lingers only in the mind.

We were young and in love — that same old cliché. We were students of the academic variety but also students of each other, always learning. 

I’d never met a woman I’d been able to instantly fall in love with before, but when I saw Jane soaked with rain, her fiery hair fighting with the wind in strands of red and gold — something happened to me. She awoke something inside I’d never felt before. I’m not a courageous man, in fact truth be told I never approach women, but when I saw Jane something grabbed me and threw me towards her. 

I offered her my umbrella, and two green eyes smiled at me from behind a wall of damp hair. She told me her name. I told her mine. That’s how it started. 

By all traditional standards of the word beautiful, Jane at that exact moment in time was far from it. Her makeup crawled down her pale face like little black rivers — her hair a sodden mess, but you can never change someone’s eyes. When those eyes looked up and smiled any composure I had was lost and I was Jane’s forever, I simply didn’t care about any other future, only hers. All it took was one look.

That was six years ago today, if I recall the event correctly — give or take a day or two. A lifetime between now and then. The beginning of our adventure had offered so much promise — so much vitality! What happened was impossible to imagine. It only happens in television dramas or romance novels. 

Our relationship was good — better than good. It was the best thing in my life. We graduated together in 2017. That’s when the trouble began. 

Me and Jane were deeply interwoven by the time we graduated, but like any knitted jumper sometimes one loose thread is all you need to unravel and destroy it. No matter how well made how entangled something is, it can always fall apart. 

Our relationship continued after we graduated and we moved in together. I, myself after just having completed a degree in economics, a boring subject for a man who already has all he needs in life, started working at an accountancy firm in the city. Jane too started working as a nurse. Only the most beautiful souls work in a field as unglamorous as caring. Jane was a beautiful soul and all she wanted from her life was to help, but even that was cut short. You see, life is a roulette wheel you’re never sure what you’re going to get, but the wheel spins again and again and again — until, in this case, something goes horribly wrong. 

It was during the summer, August 15, just three days before my birthday. Me and Jane had plans to travel back to my hometown and spend the weekend with my parents to celebrate. I’d just got back from lunch when I got the call. Something had happened at the hospital while Jane was on her shift, she’d collapsed — randomly with no warning and no prior history. Before I’d even realised I’d left the office it was already behind me.

Jane was the only thing I truly cared about, she was the only one I felt benevolent to. The only one who had enriched me and the only one who mattered. When I arrived at the hospital with a pit in my stomach the size of a grave I bounded up the stairs until I reached her. 

I reached the door and there she was. My phoenix from the ashes. A fiery mess of red and gold but still beautiful. Those green eyes luminous as she saw me burst through the door and into the ward. Jane was fine for now but waiting on tests, they needed to find out why she had fainted. The relief didn’t last long. As we sat playing snap in the hospital room Doctor Miller came back — clipboard in hand and a frown upon his brow. 

Jane had developed Huntington’s disease. Her body was in a state of degeneration the reason she had fainted was due to the breakdown of nerves in her brain. The disease kills your body’s cells. I’m no doctor but what I can understand is how it feels to see the women you love, the most special human being in your world slowly destroys herself — burning slowly to a cinder.

For three years I watched Jane decompose. To begin with she was still independent, she didn’t need me to walk or talk or indeed do anything which she could normally do. She couldn’t carry on at work which hurt her greatly but she soon became optimistic. Jane started painting while I was out at work, and we lived well for a while. I loved driving up to the house excited to see what beautiful work of art my amazing girlfriend had created while I was out. In a certain respect I was even envious of Jane, despite the impending doom which hung over her diagnosis like a sword of Damocles — she was happy. She was creative and fun, nothing could stop her from being herself. It was beautiful.        

After a year of her diagnosis things became difficult because she could no longer walk and had to rely on a wheelchair to get around. The house first had ramps, then a stairlift, then a hospital bed. Sometimes the analogy of watching a car crash comes to mind when someone is irreparably broken. What I was seeing though was the effects of a car crash in slow motion every single detail meticulously seen through my ever-lingering eyes — every lung being punctured, every bone snapped, every whiplash — agonizingly slowly. I was watching the love of my life die.

Jane Domity died on the 27th October 2019 — at least that’s when she was dead to me, she was still breathing by that point. Jane was restricted to her bed. The disease had eaten away ravenously at her motor neuron skills and even talking had become an issue. Jane knew she was dying — the only thing keeping her alive was her morphine and her oxygen. Her lungs had begun to work ineffectively courtesy of her brain consuming itself. She had many visitors; people truly loved her, but with every visitor she lost a little piece of herself. It was as if each visitor was taking something from her every time they came. It was on that day, October 27th, that Jane asked me to kill her. At first I was repulsed by her request, how could I kill the love of my life — it wasn’t fair. I never wanted Jane to leave me even if I had to look after her for the rest of my life I wanted her right where she was. I refused. 

As time went on her eyes began to lose colour — the vibrancy they once had, the playfulness within them had begun receding — they were still and worrisome.

I know what Jane wanted was cruel. It wasn’t just cruel to me it was cruel to her parents and her friends, but they didn’t know her like I did.

My voice sounded alien to me when I uttered the words on that fateful day, but once I agreed — I saw something beautiful that hadn’t touched me for years. Jane’s eyes burst into life, it was as if the only news she wanted to hear had been uttered and her destiny now complete. I remember the tears when I grabbed the needle — Jane cried too, but under all that pain, her eyes smiled with the ferocity I remembered of our first day together. In death Jane’s eyes had found life once again. Jane couldn’t talk by this point but all I needed to see were those beautiful eyes guiding me towards her fate. I can’t explain what it’s like to see somebody die, I’m sure it’s different for everyone. When Jane died it was peaceful — she slipped away with the grace and elegance of her former life. While the autumn leaves blazed, tumbling down to the earth Jane’s eyes seared into mine until she was gone. Gliding gracefully like the autumn leaves into the recesses of sleep, rejoining the earth forever. It was the way she wanted it. 

They never forgave me for what I had done — Jane’s family, even my own family seemed to abandon me. I should have told them but they would never understand, I’m at peace with the fact that it was Jane’s decision.   

I remember reading the news reports: 26 year old man takes partner’s life, lover kills his partner in a bid to alleviate suffering. 

I always hated that expression “taking someone’s life”. I certainly didn’t take Jane’s life; she lost that before I gave her too much morphine. 

Her life was taken from me, I didn’t take anything from Jane.  

The prison bell erupts into life 

Time to head back to the cells. Autumn in prison is strange for a man like me. The punitive measures of a jail cell don’t suit me. I don’t look like a jailbird, and I don’t feel like one. They buried Jane shortly after she died, I wasn’t invited, but knowing where she is has become enough. I look at the fiery leaves on the other side of the fence — secure in the knowledge that a little part of Jayne is in each and every one…