Tumble short Story By Otatade Okojie

Chaos can be crippling. For me, chaos has a language. It begins in fragments—jerks, auras, the soft betrayal of my own body turning against itself. A tightening. A flicker. The spasmodic pull of something unseen, like invisible strings yanking me toward a place I never chose. Then comes the unraveling. The writhing. The seizing. The slow, inevitable descent into shadow. And afterward—silence. Always silence. There are days I forge myself into something else. Something smooth. Predictable. Acceptable. I practice being normal the way others practice piano—repetition, precision, control. I shape my laughter, soften my pauses, hide the tremors beneath stillness. I want to belong to the ninety-nine. Not the one. Never the one. The world, I have learned, does not like question marks. It prefers certainty. Simplicity. Easy answers wrapped in comfortable lies. So when people see me falter, they rename it. Episodes. Fits. Something strange. They shrink it down until it fits inside their understanding, even if that understanding is wrong. Especially if it is wrong. Epilepsy, to them, is a story told badly. Full of myths that cling like smoke in closed rooms. And people—people would rather breathe smoke than open a window. I met Eden two weeks before the third semester. And I did not like him. There were no birds. No soft music swelling in the background of my life. No delicate flutter of butterflies pretending to be prophecy. There was only irritation. Sharp. Immediate. Uninvited. “You’re doing it wrong,” he said. I turned to him slowly. We were standing at a volunteer booth for an epilepsy awareness campaign. A folding table. Purple ribbons scattered like misplaced intentions. Pamphlets no one wanted to read. “And how exactly am I doing it wrong?” I asked. Eden smiled. Not kindly. Not cruelly. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whisper-Dreams-Otatade-Okojie/dp/B0D8KP5H2Y Just… knowingly. “You’re explaining it like you’re apologizing for it.” His words landed harder than they should have. I felt something rise in my chest—defensive, sharp-edged. “I’m not apologizing,” I said. “You are,” he replied gently. “Just not out loud.” I studied him then. Really studied him. He was tall in a way that felt unbothered by space. His brows thick, almost dramatic, like they had something to say before he did. Bladed dimples cut into his cheeks when he spoke, softening the edges of his confidence. His skin carried the warmth of pecan, his eyes the quiet depth of cocoa. And when he moved— he moved like poetry. Fluid. Unforced. Like his body trusted itself completely. I hated that. “You don’t understand,” I said. It came out sharper than I intended. He didn’t flinch. “Then help me understand,” he said. For a moment, the world narrowed. The noise of passing students faded. The hum of the day softened. And I realized something unsettling: He meant it. “People don’t want to understand,” I said finally. “They want something simple. Something they can label and move away from.” Eden nodded slowly. “And you’re giving them that,” he said. I laughed then. A hollow sound. “What do you want me to do? Stand here and tell them the truth?” https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whisper-Dreams-Otatade-Okojie/dp/B0D8KP5H2Y “Yes.” The word settled between us. Simple. Impossible. “The truth is ugly,” I said. “The truth is real,” he replied. Days passed. We worked together. Not by choice. By schedule. By coincidence. By something else neither of us named. I watched him. The way he spoke to people—not at them, not over them, but into that quiet space where understanding begins. He didn’t simplify things. He expanded them. “Epilepsy isn’t just seizures,” he told a hesitant listener. “It’s a way of living with uncertainty and still choosing to show up.” I listened. Against my will at first. Then with it. “Why do you care so much?” I asked him one afternoon. The question slipped out before I could stop it. Eden looked at me, his expression softer now. “Because people deserve to be seen clearly,” he said. Then, after a pause: “And because I know what it’s like not to be.” Something shifted. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whisper-Dreams-Otatade-Okojie/dp/B0D8KP5H2Y Not loudly. Not all at once. But enough. The seizure came on a day that felt almost peaceful. Which is how chaos likes to arrive. Unannounced. Uninvited. Unfair. I felt it before it happened. The aura. That familiar distortion, like reality bending at the edges. My breath caught. Not here. Not now. Eden was speaking to someone across the table. I tried to stay still. Tried to hold myself together. Tried to remain part of the ninety-nine. But my body had already chosen otherwise. The world tilted. Light fractured. And I fell. When I came back, the sky was still above me. The world still turning. But something had changed. Eden knelt beside me. Calm. Steady. Unshaken. “You’re okay,” he said softly. Not as a question. As a certainty. I waited for it. The shift. The fear. The distance. But it didn’t come. Instead, he stayed. “You didn’t look away,” I whispered. My voice felt fragile. Like it might break if I used it too much. Eden shook his head. “Why would I?” I didn’t have an answer. Because most people do. Because most people can’t hold that kind of truth without flinching. But he could. “You don’t have to be the ninety-nine,” he said quietly. The words settled deep. Too deep. “I don’t want to be the one,” I admitted. Eden smiled then. Soft. Certain. “Maybe the one is where the truth lives.” Silence wrapped around us. Not heavy. Not empty. Just… present. Later, as the day folded into evening, we sat beside the now-empty booth. The pamphlets untouched. The ribbons still. “Do you think people will ever understand?” I asked. Eden looked out at the fading light. “Understanding isn’t the goal,” he said. “What is?” He turned to me. Connection flickering quietly in his eyes. “Being seen anyway.” I thought about the chaos. The jerks. The auras. The falling. The way my body refused to follow the script the world had written for it. And for the first time— it didn’t feel like something I had to escape. Maybe chaos wasn’t something that needed to be erased. Maybe it was something that could be witnessed. Shared. Understood—not by everyone— but by someone. Eden stood, offering me his hand. Not to fix me. Not to steady me. Just to be there. I took it. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whisper-Dreams-Otatade-Okojie/dp/B0D8KP5H2Y And in that small, quiet moment, I understood something the world had never taught me: You don’t have to belong to the ninety-nine to be whole. Sometimes— wholeness begins the moment you stop trying not to fall. 🌙