The Woman

“I don’t know what you are doing to me, Mon Cherie.”

The words were the same then as the day they first met. Only now, rather than describing the torrid paramour that had swept into her life, the Woman was describing the slow decline that her life was taking. Both the Woman and the Doctor knew that it was only a matter of time before it would all be over, and she would slip into that dark abyss for good.

The Doctor put a comforting hand on the back of her neck and gently guided her back onto the bed she had risen from. The Woman began to offer a protest, but the Doctor quieted her with a gentle “Hush, my darling, and sleep. I will bring you more medicine when you arise.”

The Doctor handed the Woman a glass of water- prepared with laudanum, though she didn’t know this- and watched as she struggled momentarily to stay awake, then drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Much to the astonishment of both the Doctor and the Woman, their love affair had lasted only a few short months before the Woman’s health had begun to decline. At first it had come upon her like a common cold, and her concern had been more that her lover may leave, than over any danger to her life. But as the days stretched into weeks, and the weeks to months, and her health saw only decline, both Woman and Doctor felt a growing fear that this may be the end.

In the weeks following her strange and sudden illness, both parties had thought many times of their first meeting, early in the spring of that same year. The day had been strangely warm for the end of April in that part of the country, and the flowers were already in full bloom. A mutual friend had introduced the two in a bakery, and before the day was out the good Doctor and his Woman had already moved in together.

That night, lying together in her bed, the Woman had said the same words that she would nearly seventh months later as she drifted closer to death: “I don’t know what you are doing to me, Mon Cherie.”

But that wasn’t entirely true. The Woman did know what he was doing to her, or at least she had an idea. In the mind of the Woman it was no coincidence that her loving Doctor had come to her only weeks before this strange and unfortunate illness came upon her.

And while most of her days were spent in the haze of laudanum, she still had enough sense about her to wonder if her illness were as mysterious as her Doctor claimed that it was.

As the Woman slept, the Doctor remained busy at work in her kitchen mixing herbs, oils, roots, and powders. To the outside eye, their love affair truly did come with perfect timing. The Woman’s illness reminisced slightly of tuberculosis, and her family and friends were all too willing to accept that as the answer. At the beginning, the Woman had accepted it as well believing that she had contracted the illness on one of her many trips into the city. But as the days wore on, and nothing the Doctor did presented her with any improvement, her suspicions began to grow. Even the Doctor was well aware of the suspicious circumstances around her illness, but he remained unconcerned. The good Doctor knew what he was doing.

By the time the sky was painted bright with the oranges, yellows, pinks, and reds of sunset, the Woman was finally beginning to stir. As she woke, she could immediately sense something different: death was outside her door. Her Doctor came to her with his mix of so-called medicine, and she accepted it without argument. But as he rose from her side, she placed one frail hand gently on his chest. “Mi amour, I feel the end is near. Please, as one last favor bring me the wooden box beneath our bed. It is the only one, bring it quick.”

The Doctor hurried to their room, where he found the box she spoke of. It was intricately designed, with the beautiful dancing patterns of Greek gods and goddesses. On the side of the box, he could make out the carving of Achilles held over the river Styx by his mother.

And carved on top, was Persephone hand in hand with her lover Hades, surrounded by flowers and fruit trees in what he could only assume was the garden of Hades’ palace.

The Doctor walked quickly back to the room where his lover lay, breath coming more shallow now, but eyes as bright as the day they met. The Woman smiled at him, grateful and at peace, as her delicate hand fluttered down to the lid of the box like a butterfly landing in a glade. Gently she lifted the lid and removed the package that lay inside. With a smooth motion the Woman raised the gun with one hand, and shot her Doctor, before lying back against her pillows and staring at the lamplight that flickered across the ceiling.

The Woman’s black hair fell around her head like a pool of blood, as she took one last deep breath.