What Happened to Jean

It’s a shame what happened to Jean.

No one knows why exactly, but she always said that she spent all her time fighting off madness.

No one paid much attention, because she always said things like that.

The last day I saw her, she had gathered up all of the things she loved and arranged them in neat piles all over her room. She said she was only going to eat rice and steamed vegetables from then on, and that she planned on duct taping the windows and all the cracks in the room to block out the light. She said that it was because beautiful women were thin and pale. She said it was because she couldn’t stand outside anymore.

Then she said that she never wanted to die, but sometimes she wanted to fade away like pencil on very old sheet of paper. She wanted to go somewhere far and distant, where the world can’t get close. She said that she wanted lay in the grass and let the pain drain out of her like ink from a pen.

I didn’t pay much attention, because she always said things like that.

Later, we saw her standing on the bridge. She wore a pair of slippers and an old-fashioned bathing suit she had found in a thrift store. She had wrapped chains made of many colors of construction paper around her body. They blew in the wind and got tangled in the veil that trailed from the back of her head. Her make-up was perfect. We were drunk and tired, and we laughed and told her to come down so we could go home.

She laughed too. She tipped her head back and laughed so hard right before she jumped.

Her note only said that she had discovered how to fly and it wasn’t a moment too soon because she was very tired of being bored.

No one knows if it was a suicide note or if she meant it.

But I think it was both…

These days, we talk about and think about everything Jean ever said.

Now that Jean doesn’t say anything anymore.