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

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. 🌙

Hidden Short Story By Otatade Okojie

There are truths that live quietly inside us. Not loud enough to be spoken. Not soft enough to disappear. Mina carried hers like a second heartbeat. She met Daniel in a place that smelled of coffee and rain. The windows fogged easily there, blurring the world into something softer, more forgiving. Daniel liked to draw shapes into the condensation—circles, spirals, unfinished maps of places he said he might visit someday. Mina liked that he imagined futures so easily. She had stopped doing that. Love, when it came, felt like something borrowed. Like a coat too warm for the season, comforting but temporary. Daniel spoke in sunlight. He laughed without hesitation. Touched her hand without thinking. Looked at her as if she were something simple, something whole. Mina let him. That was her first mistake. The word epilepsy lived in silence. In the careful way she measured her days. In the quiet alarms set on her phone for medication. In the way she avoided certain lights, certain sounds, certain late nights that stretched too far. She became skilled at hiding it. At turning her life into something seamless. Something uninterrupted. “Why don’t you ever stay over?” Daniel asked once. The question drifted between them like smoke. Mina smiled lightly. “I sleep better alone.” It wasn’t a lie. Just not the truth he was asking for. There were moments—small, sharp ones—when the secret pressed too close to the surface. A flicker of light that lasted too long. A strange, distant feeling that brushed against her thoughts like a warning she pretended not to understand. In those moments, she would pull away. Change the subject. Leave early. Disappear just long enough to remain intact. She told herself it was kindness. That she was protecting him from something he wouldn’t understand. From something that might make him look at her differently. Fragile. Uncertain. Less. Love, she believed, required illusion. And she was very good at maintaining one. But secrets have weight. And weight, eventually, demands to be felt. It happened on a night that felt too beautiful to break. They were walking through the city, lights spilling across wet pavement, the air alive with distant music and passing voices. Daniel was telling her a story—something about getting lost in a bookstore as a child. Mina was listening. Or trying to. Because something had already begun to shift. The world sharpened. Then blurred. The lights grew too bright. Too close. Like stars falling out of place. “Mina?” Daniel’s voice changed. Concern threaded through it. She tried to answer. But the words dissolved before they reached her mouth. The warning came then—clear and undeniable. That familiar, terrible edge. The beginning of the fall. She turned away from him. Instinct. Habit. Fear. But this time, it was too late. The ground disappeared. Or maybe she did. When she came back, the world felt distant. Like she was seeing it through water. Cold pavement beneath her. The sharp taste of air in her lungs. And Daniel— kneeling beside her. His face was not what she expected. Not fear. Not disgust. Something else. Something quieter. Something that hurt more to look at. “You had a seizure,” he said softly. Not a question. A truth, laid gently between them. Mina closed her eyes. The secret—her carefully constructed silence—had shattered. There was no gathering it now. No reshaping it into something safer. “I didn’t want you to know,” she whispered. The words felt small. Insufficient. “Why?” he asked. The question wasn’t sharp. But it cut anyway. She searched for an answer that would make sense. That would justify the hiding, the distance, the quiet lies. “I didn’t want to be… less,” she said finally. The word lingered. Heavy. Daniel was silent for a long moment. The city moved around them—unaware, unchanged. Then he spoke. “You don’t get to decide that for me.” Mina opened her eyes. “What?” “You don’t get to decide that this”—he gestured gently, not at her, but at the space between them—“makes you less.” His voice was steady. “But you did decide not to trust me with it.” The truth settled in her chest. Not cruel. Just clear. “I was scared,” she admitted. “Of what?” “That you would see me differently.” Daniel exhaled slowly. “I do,” he said. Her heart dropped. But then— “I see you as someone who was carrying something alone.” Silence unfolded between them. Not empty. Not broken. But changed. 6 “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked again, more quietly now. Mina looked at him, really looked this time. Not through the filter of fear. Not through the illusion she had built. “Because I wanted to be loved without conditions,” she said. Daniel shook his head gently. “That’s not what love is.” He reached for her hand. Not carefully. Not cautiously. Just… naturally. “Love isn’t about pretending the hard things don’t exist,” he said. “It’s about choosing someone with them.” Something inside Mina shifted then. Not broken. Not fixed. But opened. The night felt different now. Less like something to hide inside. More like something honest. “I should have told you,” she said. “Yes,” Daniel replied simply. Then, softer: “But you can start now.” Mina nodded. For the first time, the word epilepsy didn’t feel like something she had to bury. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whisper-Dreams-Otatade-Okojie/dp/B0D8KP5H2Y It felt like something she could place gently between them. Not as a barrier. But as a truth. Love, she realized, was not the absence of storms. Not the illusion of perfection. It was this— standing in the aftermath of what had been hidden, and choosing, quietly and deliberately, not to turn away. And sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is let yourself be seen— even in the moments you tried hardest to disappear. 🌙

Fall short story By Otatade Okojie

Fall The clinic smelled like antiseptic and unfinished sentences. Everything there felt paused—like a breath held too long. Names were called. Doors opened and closed. Lives were discussed in fragments. And somewhere between the ticking clock and the low hum of fluorescent lights, time seemed to loosen its grip on meaning. That was where Elia first saw him. He sat across the waiting room, hunched slightly forward, elbows on his knees, as if holding himself together required effort no one else could see. There was something careful about him. Not fragile—no, not that. But deliberate. Like every movement had been rehearsed against the possibility of collapse. His name, she would later learn, was Luca. Elia came to the clinic every second Thursday. Her mother filled the silence with nervous conversation, but Elia preferred the quiet. In quiet, she could listen—to the subtle warnings in her body, the small shifts that told her whether the day would remain hers or be taken. She did not expect to notice anyone. But she noticed him. Their first conversation happened without permission. “You count the lights too,” Luca said. Elia looked up. “The flickering ones,” he added. “There are seven. The third is the worst.” She hadn’t realized anyone else saw it. “Eight,” she corrected softly. “You missed the one near the door.” He smiled then—quick, almost surprised. “I always do.” It became a ritual. They didn’t sit together at first. Just near enough. Close enough for shared glances. For small, quiet observations passed between them like contraband. “Too bright today,” Luca would murmur. “Too loud,” Elia would reply. Language, simplified. Distilled to what mattered. The nurses never noticed. Or maybe they did and chose not to see. Hospitals are full of secrets. Most of them heavy. This one was light. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whisper-Dreams-Otatade-Okojie/dp/B0D8KP5H2Y One afternoon, rain pressed softly against the windows, turning the world outside into a blurred watercolor. Elia found him alone in the hallway. Not in the waiting room. Not where they were supposed to be. He stood by a window, watching the rain like it was telling him something important. “You’ll get in trouble,” she said. “So will you,” he replied without turning. She stepped closer anyway. “Do you ever feel it before?” he asked. Elia knew what he meant. “Yes,” she said. “Like falling. But slowly. Like the ground forgets where it is.” Luca nodded. “For me, it’s like a door opening somewhere in my head,” he said. “And I don’t know what’s on the other side.” They stood there, suspended between understanding and something deeper. Something unnamed. That was the first time their hands touched. Not intentionally. Just a brief collision of fingers as both reached for the windowsill. But it lingered. Longer than it should have. Long enough to change something. After that, the waiting room felt too exposed. Too watched. So they found other places. Empty corridors. Stairwells where the lights buzzed softly overhead. The quiet corner near the vending machines where no one lingered long enough to notice them. They spoke in fragments. About fear. About memory. About the strange loneliness of living inside a body that could betray you without warning. “I hate that I can’t trust my own mind,” Elia admitted once. Luca looked at her, something dark and soft in his expression. “I hate that people think it’s all I am.” The secret grew between them. Not heavy. Not yet. But fragile. Like glass held too tightly. One day, Elia didn’t see him. The waiting room felt wrong without him. The lights flickered, but no one counted them. The silence stretched too far. She told herself it didn’t matter. But her chest felt hollow in a way she couldn’t explain. He returned the next week. Paler. Quieter. But there. “You disappeared,” she said, trying to sound casual. “So did you,” he replied. “I was here.” “Not really.” Later, in the stairwell, he told her. “It’s getting worse,” he said. The words fell between them like something broken. Elia didn’t know what to say. So she did the only thing that felt true. She reached for his hand. This time, on purpose. 4 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whisper-Dreams-Otatade-Okojie/dp/B0D8KP5H2Y They began to measure time differently. Not in days. Not in weeks. But in moments they could hold onto. A shared laugh in a quiet hallway. A whispered confession between appointments. The warmth of a hand that chose to stay. The first time Elia had a seizure near him, she was terrified. Not of the seizure. But of what would come after. Would he look at her differently? Would the fragile thing between them shatter? When she woke, she was lying on the cool floor. Luca beside her. Steady. Unshaken. “You came back,” he said softly. “I always do,” she murmured. He shook his head. “No. I mean… you came back to me.” Something shifted then. Not sudden. Not dramatic. But certain. Like a leaf letting go. “Why does it feel like falling?” Elia asked one evening. They were sitting on the hospital steps, the sky fading into deep blue. Luca thought for a moment. “Maybe it is,” he said. “But not the kind that breaks you.” She looked at him. “Then what kind?” He squeezed her hand gently. “The kind that teaches you what’s worth holding onto.” Love, Elia realized, did not arrive in bright, obvious ways. Not here. Not in a place where everything was uncertain. It arrived quietly. In stolen moments. In shared understanding. In the simple, impossible act of choosing someone— even when both of you were already falling. And so they did. They fell. Not away from each other. But into something fragile, secret, and fiercely alive. A love that existed in the spaces between seizures. Between fear and hope. Between the breaking— and the becoming. 🌙 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whisper-Dreams-Otatade-Okojie/dp/B0D8KP5H2Y

George's Marvellous Medicine By: Roald Dahl Narrated by: Derek Jacobi

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Presenting a mischievous new reading of Roald Dahl's George's Marvellous Medicine, read by BAFTA-winning comedian Romesh Ranganathan. This immersive audiobook is Georges Marvellous Medicine is one of my favourite Roald Dahl reads of all time, along with Matilda. It is a hillarious book about a young man producing a ridiculous concoction for his very nasty Grandmother. Grandma is both mean spirited, miserable, and mean. George creates a character and a story that will have you in both hysteria, and puzzling over whats in your meal, and who youve been engaging with lately. George a young man is left at home alone with Grandma, Grandma is kranky, mean spirited and very very miserable.A very mischievous read, Grandma is awful to George, and not much nicer to his parents either. We join George as he is put in charge of Grandmas medicine, a humorous book that looks at a childs ability to deal with a difficult adult.Although Grandma is a nightmare, what has us in laughing hysteria is Georges creative concoction, the ingredients he infuses in this awful medicine both to punish, yet for us to entertain. This book is highly entertaining, a read that will have you on the floor, this book is hillarious. Roald Dahl strikes again, the magic ingredients are both George, and Dahls dynamic use of language and ability to show such interesting colourful characters. Dahl is once again wizard with a pen.

Storm Clouds in Fiction

 

Storm cloud

Once we were fiction
Caught in the rough
Distilled in a poem
Broken enough
These words 
They would chide 
Us
Our season so dim
Hack us to pieces 
Making us thin
I stand on an Island
Caught in a  war
Reaching out to your 
Fiction
Thats bleeding me raw

Now we are fiction

Soon we are smoke

What was this love?

I cannot cope

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By Otatade Okojie

 

No Sweeping Sundays

                                              

                                                                                  

 

 No sweeping Sunday

A rest from pain

A chattering Mind

My dulling brain

Gladiator rises

With Trojan steps

Each walk i take

The ground has cleft

For whewn i fell 

I so was bruised

Battered 

Small 

Flame 

Diffused

And now i march 

To lions Gate

Just so Goliath

Can see my 

Fate

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Go fund me post 4

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The Connoisseur:Albert Van Der Steeg

The Connoisseur

On the ferry between the Hook of Holland and Harwich we heard a man explaining wines to his girlfriend or wife. We had to laugh a bit:  there’s only one kind of wine aboard.  It made me think of a man who married into my family.

With his father he maintained their family’s wine cellar.  It sounded like a lot of work: they saved every label of wine they drank, discussed how long a bottle should rest before being ready to drink, and he would turn the bottles once a week.  He even had a written down journal about the wines.

At parties in the Netherlands we normally sit in a circle, have our drinks and snacks and talks.

He would always show his knowledge about wines.  After getting his glass he would stick his big nose in it and sniff loudly.  Sometimes he would ask for the cork of the bottle and sniff at that too.

The next thing would be sipping a little bit and rinsing it in his mouth. Sometimes with a sound like “mmm”. Finally he would gulp the wine down, after which he would look to the ceiling for some time. The suspense would almost be killing, he would wait a little more and then would say something like: “Anjou, chateau Perrigord, 1979 and ……I would say, mmmm the south slope.” 

His wife would look at him in admiration. “Yes, my husband is a true connoisseur!”   The host would get the bottle and yes, it was completely right.

Another brother in law and I suspected him to have seen the bottle every time he did this. How he managed to do this we didn’t know.  It was just a suspicion.  We decided to put him to the test on the next birthday party.

I bought an excellent wine, a Grand Cru of a famous chateau and a great year as well according to the salesman. After that I went to the supermarket and bought a bottle of Bulgarian Bull’s Blood.

This a very cheap wine, not from a chateau or such, you could even buy it in cardboard boxes. I put the bottle of excellent wine in a normal position in the cupboard. The Bulgarian bottle was hidden.

At the birthday party after the coffee and birthday cake had gone, the beer, soft drinks and wine was served. Our wine expert got a glass of the Bull’s Blood.  His nose went in the glass and the normal procedure followed. He was really delighted! “What an excellent wine!”, he exclaimed.

“This is a Grand Cru! You’re spoiling me!” He named the name of the chateau and the year of bottling.  And then he asked for the bottle.

I brought him the Bulgarian bottle and he fell very silent. We didn’t hear anything of him the rest of the evening.  His wife started a conversation about a lot of different things.  The other brother in law joined me in the kitchen while I was getting more crisps, together we had a big laugh.

After this evening we never got the tasting show again.  He lost his title of “Connoisseur” that night. Only the sniffing in the glass remained

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Verse of the man

verse of the man, strong in his stride, i am your eve, worlds can go hide, dare they arise and look upon with contempt, with resentment, and lack common sense. For here we are, a tribe of two, evolving into fiction, turning to glue, something the eyes, they never did see, something to marvel at
something so free.

Short story excerpt:Once Upon

It was an ancient thought which arose him from a dusky sleep, the fear of living a life less satisfied, unfulfilled, dreamer with itching Bones. As Alex Rossi glared at the blue scape of Ocean his eyes dotting the fish which jumped out like ballerina's a thought crossed his mind. Once upon a time, he had been a beast of a man, a flyer who made life itself afraid. He had been a champion of a man who set sturdy goals leaving not even the spine of them to Marvel at, yet the loss of his dearest had deconstructed it all. What makes up the foundations of a fortress of a man, this lion, this Kingsman, when his heart is in the other realm. It was that doctor and her lazy tone, the one with the Midnight hair, and the chestnut brown eyes framed by astute bookish glasses. "Suicide," she had said, the word he wished was smoke in the air. There were days where the ache of longing made him glare at the cocktail of medicines on his desk, when he'd lay in bed for hours wishing he was curled up to her long aristocratic frame. Wishing he could watch her move like a shadow cat across the room once again, her thick Afro hair, her dimpled brown eyes, and the calm of her smile. When had she stopped smiling, when had he stopped listening, and how did she keep that secret for so long? He would take care of it, he would take care of all Sylvia's messes, he shook himself out of the stupor, he would be great in memory of her and turn her foundation into something spectacular. The guilt had eaten him for years, of his affairs, her affairs, the projects they should have been fixing but when two broken glass people come together it can be a puzzle with missing pieces. Alex pulled the hood over his head from the white sweatshirt. Opened his yellow flask and just as he reached to take a sip of the iced tea he'd packed, he felt it then. The frame of a gun, pressing against the back of his head, and a silky voice transport him back to another reality. "Hello Alex," she spoke , her Russian accent polished, the quiver in her voice barely audible,"Remember me?"

Short Story: Marcus

It wasn't what I expected, he wasn't what I expected. My friend Marcus has changed a lot, there's a venom in him. His words seethe with rage, they leak out of the crevices of his tongue. Poison that they are. He used to be that guy, the smiler in the neighbourhood, the one who always waved at you first. But somethings strange about him, these days. There's a sickness in his eyes where there was warmth, a darkness where there was light, and yesterday his soul felt completely black. " I'm not a how was it for you,kind of girl." I stretch my tall limbs out to the edge of his mahogany bed post.my breasts are pert beneath the sapphire blanket. I used to feel a warmth in his room. The embers in the fireplace, the painting of a more retro urban Monalisa, the gold chandeliers, when we were kids we used to do yoga on his older brothers tiger rug which he had claimed for himself. " would it be cheesy if I admitted, that it made me feel cheap," I tie my hair up in a satin bun. There's rouge on the bedsheets from where I lay on my front as he claimed me in the shadows of a busy night. I was dense with drink and sick with longing. "Did you want it to mean more?" His voice is throaty, rough as his brown eyes lick the embers in the fire. " No." I confess. We're not couple people, Marcus and I have never been couple people. We hate Valentine's Day, and it's tedious marketing campaigns. I don't care much for chocolates, silk scarves, or funny lingerie. Last Valentine's Day Marcus licked bourbon out of my belly button, and planted a kiss between my thighs. It was soft and gentle, I felt his goatee tickle the soft layers of my flesh as I curled his handsome face like a stallion. Allowing his tongue to slip between my undergarments. We'd never went beyond that. for years, we'd watched, tingled, tiptoed around the electricity we felt. Now I simply felt stone in my stomache salt in my mouth. It wasnt supposed to be like this, it was meant to be hot and sweet, a sedative for my pain. Nourishment for my starvation. Sometimes I feel like a lynx, combing a trail through the wild, yet with my other lovers I feel myself clawing into infinity. " will you ever talk about it, about what was done?" Marcus runs large hands through his ink black crown, his eyes almost as dark. "Maybe." He shrugs his lean frame dragging on the dark jeans and turtle neck. "One day."

Elias and Avril (Excerpt short story)

"Have you ever watched someone destroy themselves, because of something you did?" I stared deep into the Aqua of the Ocean, caught in the memory of it. Pretty little thing. Fucked up pretty little thing, now your life is unwinding like the rope I tied around my neck as a child. Swing, Swing. It was bizarre to love you. " Does she still think she's loosing her mind?" His voice was heavy like the fog. I looked over to see Elias a giant above me, domineering, intrusive upon my wake. Both our eyes shared the same blackness. " Perfect little thing, how can you not tell,"
" When your walking into a mine field." Elias grinned devilishly. Some would say we were sinister, my twin sister her lover and I. I do not always claim all her belongings, and yet Elias was something I had always wanted for myself. " They cant prove its murder, if we drive her to claim her own life, the chaos, the drama of it all," he did a Shakespearian wave something we'd both mastered from Theatre class. I do not call what I am experiencing love, or the venom I feel for my twin sister hatred. We just collided in the same womb, at the same time. Maybe somewhere in that void in nether realm the spirits forgot to give me certain parts, and yet I knew they were missing. I do not cry when sad movies come on, when people die or when someone is in pain, instead there is a hollowness I feel. A numbness I was born with. People say I am beautiful, my step dad used to say I look like a Sculpture. " Mighty fucked up Avril is, but doesn't she look like a thing," he'd let out a low whistle, and Id see mothers eyes dance with jealousy. I have little time for things like envy, it distracts the mind from purpose. Myself and Elias I believe follow the same creed. " Don't get all dreamy today love," Elias leans in for a kiss, I step back just to awe at what ive snatched. My lot. Elias is one of the most sought after boys in our year group tall dark, and devilishly handsome. My mother hates that he dresses like a goth, he has salt dark brown eyes, and when he smiles, he has dimples which fool everyone. Yet I know what lurks in his troubled mind. "Not going to football today I see,"
" Football is a boring Sport, I've changed my game to golf."
" You hate Golf Elias," I offer as he falls in step beside me and our limbs stretch along the board walk.
" My father has a new opponent on the golf Course, a man called Dermott Langley," he began to imitate the walk of a teletubbies ." Dermott Langley has secrets and those secrets will cost him."

The dungeons

It was the wayward ones that requested for life to begin. Asking questions of a life that paralyzed them. They wanted so much more than this, and as the world belched out, the pain of promise yet to arrive, held them in a state of captivity. It was done, and it was questionable, Menelik hated playing hero to young girls who were starved of all their dreams. Girls who took a wrong turning in life’s obstacle course and here he was, the defender, the protector, the healer of all wounds deep. He lit the Cigarette, felt the Tobacco swell on his insides, he gulped and swallowed hard, as he wrestled with discomfort in the seat of the green Toyota. “Why do you hate being a detective, so much?”

“Because I have my own life to save.” He glanced briefly at Vivien Marx, he hated her idealism on most days, but today, she was the worst version of herself. All sunshine and daisies. It was too much for a Monday morning Stretch.

“I just think…” she began, then ran long fingers through the folds of spaghetti tendrils. She’d dyed her hair Midnight black; she always did that when work was heavy. Her hair usually a brilliant auburn would be transformed, but the eyes are always magnifying glass of the soul. Their soft brown would light with a tear, and protectively she would raise the collar of her leather jacket, as though it were hiding her from the world. 

“ You change my perspective, and yours is drugged by misery,” she uttered

“Forgive me for having seen too much in my 32 years of living,” Menelik countered. “Forgive me for not buying into your pity Mel,” she snatched the cigarette from the comfort of his fisted mouth. Stubbed it, “you promised you’d stop smoking.” They shared a glance for a five second stretch, her smile was hypnotic, her gaze like a touch to him. Menelik released a lazy smile. “You know Mel if I wasn’t so crazy about you,”

“But you are….”

He nodded, a nod meant back to business. “So you think this guy killed her.”

“Dianne Fahilla mysteriously disappears, completely out of character, right after she publishes the book revealing Aztec International’s dodgy ventures. They market themselves as a clean corporation, she knew a lot of powerful people, and she pissed of a lot of powerful people.”

 

Inside his head

I thought about the perfect things to say. Sharp, polite , precise sentences, that roll in our heads. I see you in my minds eye, perfect as you are, a vision to escape to. The man with the heavy voice and the soft brown eyes. Capture me in the moistness of all your selves,an identity sandwiched, secreted in layers of fear. I am lost in you, yet searching me. We wake up in separate places.

Mist of change

It's a decision we make within our selves,not to be beaten, to permit access for grand opportunities. When I started my journey as a writer dealing with the disability I had and some of my emotional trials, it always frustrated me not arriving at my destination with the ease others seemed to. Always hungry, weeping inside my head, what am I doing wrong. It had been a perpetual habit of mine to mourn the loss of time, and things that had crept away like shadows. Thoughts that buzzed with so much saturation reporting me back to the chaos of myself. I wanted to be a millionairess, nope I wanted to write, i have a business mind. Nope I wanted to write. Writing is a dream, writing is as far fetched an illusion as me walking out of a mirage and giving you ten million pounds. Then it happened to me, and I couldn't believe it. I signed a contract with my agent and my book Lunchbox Millionaire was being looked at by Penguin? This all began with the redebony blog, I had just lost my job to a case of office politics. In retaliation I chose to start up a blog ranting about this jerk off, who had made the last days of my working life absolutely hell. I was ridiculed, laughed at, patronised the works, but of course my ideas were used because they were great ideas. What would I call this new platform of mine? Red was my favourite colour, I had been criticised a lot for my ebony skin growing up.Yet I took pride in it. Therefore this new chapter of my life I would call redebony, then at some points as you do I got even more jazzed up, and called my blog redebonyhotspot. Last year I wiped a tear off my mother's face as the doctors told her there was nothing they could do about my epileptic seizures, the fear of status epilepticus the last year hung over our heads like a dark cloud, this year I watched my mum's eyes light up as I told her I'd turned my book Lunchbox Millionaire into a company. An enterprise for education. From taking the risk on my work I now have an agent, a new company, and have advised the Financial times, I'm working with the Princes trust,and the Oxford academy. Take that epilepsy! When you have doubt counter it with productivity. You are the change you seek.

The sparrow

"Its time ," I said with doom in my voice.my speech was caught in my throat, the way food came up as vomit, my fingers trembled and sweat leaked from every crevice. His name was Michael, I had loved this man Michael ,though he had a wife and those two snot nosed brats had defiantly put prisms so high like barbed wire fences.They did not want me to love this man, I did not want to love this man.
"We're ready mis but are you?" I glared at my reflection, a tangible self was fading in the aftermath of an emotional holocaust. I fixed the brown squared wig, looking like a psychic,investigating my brown depths for clues,
 Traces of my former self. Where was she? The brown skinned girl with the big toothed grin, and the glimmer of hope in her eyes shining obnoxiously at the world like a silver dime. My happiness had been as robust as seasoned wife, and now my smile could be found in a casket with him. Nadia had warned me of this, " to love a dying man is like playing emotional hot potato," she'd offered in that crude polish accent, her pale skin a contrast to mine, with eyes that shone like diamonds.  " you do not love this man,
 You are lonely," and yet why did I not feel like a sparrow with its missing fellow.

Fairytale homes

lunchbox millionaire

As tweeted by the los Angeles Times lunchbox millionaire the hottest book on search engine optimisation, guerrilla marketing tactics, strategy and branding will shift your business idea, your concept into first gear. Promoted by the Sydney morning Herald, Harper Collins, Barnes and noble and pub slush. Lunchbox millionaire is just what you need to raise capital, and acquire the change you require. Sometimes we choose to invest in products which add no value to our lives, now you can invest in a product that adds surplus value to your thinking and your life.

Chapter One

Pain provides much promise, and through Chaos we find order. Many people invest in the dream of becoming a Millionaire, without paying too much attention to what it takes to become a great leader in business. It is more than the investment of Capital, acquisitions and turnover, business is about making a profit, and sustainability.

Finding a Niche understanding the needs, and demands of your target audience, and capitalizing on your ideas. In 2006 Alex Tewy was struggling to pay his university fees, after much deliberation, his mind was put to task. Tewy produced a product called the Million Dollar Homepage, selling online advertising in the form of pixel space, to companies for one pound per Pixel, Over a million pixels were bought by such companies as Coca Cola, chipendales, women’s Pixels. The million dollar Homepage is now acknowledge as a piece of Internet history and Alex Tewy paid for more than his school fees. In crisis ideas are often born whether we utilize our mental power, is a choice we have to make within ourselves. A factory of ideas define us, self is wealth, those who invest wisely in building up their mental stratosphere, often go extremely far, those who are keen observers and can spot a gap in the market. David and Catherine Cook became teen millionaires by creating my yearbook dot com, it was pitched as the my space of the high school year book, and it’s initial startup was $ 250,000 dollars. They were financially supported by their older brother Geoff. 

We all have various ideas of making money. Whether it’s about producing the next blockbusting bestselling novel, the teenager who starts a campaign selling Lemonade outside to raise money for cancer research, or the tech Geek who designs gadgets for fun, suddenly realizing that these ideas could become more than a conversation at the breakfast table. An idea can become a product, which makes a turnover, we can make profit from things we enjoy. In 1990 Joannne Rowling was sitting on a delayed train heading from Manchester to London. A single mother struggling on a State benefit, she decided to see beyond her financial trap and tap into the realm of imagination. A boy was born, half wizard, half muggle, and a series of Magical adventures, with loyal friends many of us dream about. The Harry potter series of books sold over a million copies, at one point the guardian named J.k Rowling as one of the richest paid women in the world. Later on it was discovered the books were making Joanne over a million copies a minute, of royalties alone, not to mention products, and the Harry Potter theme park. What would have happened if she had simply acknowledged that she was a grown woman, who had bills to pay and should grow up? There are things we are told often conversations that distract us from the importance of an idea. Your too old for that, you don’t have the funds, stop dreaming, start job hunting; you need to take life more seriously. Or simply your ideas are not up to par. Catherine Cookson another great writer of our time with over a billion books published, then made into TV series, was rejected so many times, at one point publishing houses begged her to stop writing, she was in fact wasting her time. Cookson was later published and her books have become worldwide international bestsellers. Ideas can often make us self conscious especially when it comes to voicing them aloud. What will the people around us think? What will their opinion of us be? Where will we get the money from? Most of us assume that wealthy people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. This is rarely the case, what they have is the ability to utilize their time, and channel their imagination effectively. They are able to look at Niche, opportunity, market, target audience, and make the right connections. We are often dumbfounded by some of the most ridiculous ideas that turned individuals into walking ATM machines. Yet it was their knowledge of the business model, market structure, and an understanding of Capitalism and economics. As much as we are told that everyone has a book in them, everyone strangely enough has a million dollar idea in them. The problem is, there’s a difference between acting upon ideas and talking about them to make yourself sound intelligent. Some of the most bizarre ideas when pitched appropriately with the right marketing campaign became Million Dollar block busting hits. One of the most hysterical was the Pet Rock. The idea of selling a rock is as farfetched as it could possibly get, but one man so determined was he to triumph, he produced a product that can only be acknowledged as a windup to the working Man’s pocket. Dahl was a former advertising executive, he sold the rocks for

diamond shoes

car made out of diamonds

R