Serena

This story comes with a Dharrsheena warning.

They say death is a funny old thing, whoever they are. I assume they mean peculiar as there's nothing humorous about it. And I should know as I've met it face-to-face this week.

I suppose, if you imagined the Reaper as a grinning spectre arriving to cut the thread that ties you to this mortal existence, then his sinister smile may pass as funny. In both senses, actually.

That's what she was at the end. A grinning spectre. A hideous figure. I could go through all the usual descriptions: having the life sucked out of her; she was like a wraith; I swear I could see her bones through her skin; she was barely there; she was no longer the person I'd fallen in love with.

All of these things are, were, true. Except that last one. Because she was very much the person I'd fallen in love with. She bore no physical resemblance to her, but she was my Serena.

She was such a fighter! Every day, approaching the end of her life with a smile. She hid the grimaces but the mirror on the wall showed me, sly, unscrupulous, spiteful glass. A glimpse of excruciating pain, the drugs working like a cold cloth for a fever, only wiping the brow of the cancer as it continued its relentless mining operation to hollow her out to a husk.

She did it for me, I know, presenting the brave face. She needn't have. I felt every last vestige of her pain myself.

We once had a pup when I was a child. A lovely little thing. Small soft body, enormous ears. When my mother ran her over by accident, she survived. I can remember her taking the little dog to the vet and him examining her. No bones broken, he said but internally...

When she was brought home, she had a look in her eyes. I was so pleased to see her. She's going to be alright! But no. Something had been lost and her eyes showed it - pain unseen. Would it be too pretentious to say despair?

Serena never asked me but I saw it in her eyes.

I did what I had to do.

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366 words

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