Seize Epilepsy short story By Otatade Okojie

There are friendships that grow like trees—slow, rooted, unquestioned. Ours was like that. Before the diagnosis. Before the language of seizures and silence. Before time began to fracture. Dara had always been different. Not in the way people whisper about. But in the way light chooses certain places to rest. We grew up in the same streets, where the air always carried the hum of passing cars and distant conversations. She ran faster than me as a child. Climbed higher. Laughed louder. There was something fearless about her then—as if the world had not yet taught her its limits. “You’ve always been different, D,” I said one evening. We were older now. Sitting at the edge of a busy street, watching traffic lights change like quiet decisions being made over and over again. “Always been.” She smiled faintly. Not the wide, reckless smile I remembered. Something softer. Something that carried weight. “Everybody’s got something they’re carrying, right?” she said. The question lingered between us. Simple. But not. “Yeah,” I replied. She nodded slowly, her gaze drifting toward the moving lights. “Sometimes I feel like I’m carrying too much,” she said. Her voice lowered, as if the words themselves were fragile. “Like the shakes… the quivers deep in my bones… and those blackouts…” She paused. The city moved around us, unaware. “The depression that comes after…” she continued. “Sometimes I wish it could just seize me somewhere else. Somewhere there’s less heartbreak.” I didn’t interrupt. Some truths need space to breathe. “I’m here,” she said quietly. “And yet I still feel like I miss so much time.” Her fingers tightened slightly in her lap. “So much is interrupted. So much I can’t express… because everything looks so polished on the outside.” I followed her gaze. The traffic lights flickered red to green. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. As if life were that simple. “It’s life,” I said. The words felt small, but they were honest. “We’re all unfinished. We’re all interrupting something. Broken shards of glass, like jigsaw pieces trying to find their place.” She let out a soft breath. “And me?” she asked. Her eyes stayed fixed on the city, on the endless movement that never seemed to pause. “When will I ever be a jigsaw piece that fits? A piece that slides with ease into place?” There it was. The quiet ache. Not of pain—but of longing. “Nobody fits perfectly,” I said. “We all long to be something we’re not. Desperate to be another version of a self we create in our minds.” She turned to me then. Really looked. “And if that version feels more real than this one?” she asked. I thought about it. About the versions of ourselves we carry. The ones untouched by fear. By illness. By interruption. The ones that move through life without breaking. “Then maybe,” I said slowly, “that version isn’t something you’re meant to become.” She frowned slightly. “What do you mean?” “Maybe it’s something you’re meant to understand,” I said. “Not as perfection… but as possibility.” Silence settled between us. Not empty. Just full of things neither of us fully knew how to name. A car passed, its headlights briefly illuminating her face. For a moment, I saw it— The girl she had been. The one who ran without hesitation. Who laughed without fear of losing the moment. “She’s still there,” I said quietly. Dara blinked. “Who?” “The version of you you think you’ve lost.” She looked away. “I don’t feel her,” she admitted. “Maybe that’s because you’re looking for her in the past,” I said. “Not in who you’re becoming.” The words felt strange as I said them. Like they didn’t fully belong to me. Like they had been waiting somewhere else to be spoken. Dara was quiet for a long time. The city softened around us. The noise became distant. The lights less harsh. “What if I never fit?” she asked finally. I smiled gently. “Maybe you’re not supposed to fit,” I said. “Maybe you’re supposed to change the shape of the puzzle.” She laughed then. Soft. Surprised. Almost like she had forgotten how. “Trust you to say something like that,” she murmured. We sat there a while longer. Not trying to fix anything. Not trying to solve what couldn’t be solved. Just existing in that quiet space between what was and what could be. Dara leaned back slightly, her shoulders loosening. “The shakes are still there,” she said. “I know,” I replied. “The blackouts too.” “I know.” She glanced at me. “And you’re still here.” I nodded. “Of course.” Because some things don’t need to be explained. Some things are chosen. Again and again. The traffic lights shifted once more. Red to green. Green to amber. Amber to red. And for the first time, it didn’t feel like interruption. It felt like rhythm. Like life was not something breaking apart— but something constantly rearranging itself into shapes we were still learning how to understand. And maybe— just maybe— we were never meant to fit perfectly. Only to find the people who sit beside us while we figure out where we belong