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. 🌙

Kristifer Ann collects with House of Marchetti

House of Marchetti Book 1 of 3 SYNOPSIS Lucan Marchetti lives in the darkness of Sin City surrounded by the underbelly of organized crime. He has stayed focused on building his Las Vegas Empire after discovering his fiancé with Nicolas Abruzzi a rival Mafia family member. Jaclyn” Jack” Hale is the owner of a family coffee shop that she inherited after losing her parents in a tragic accident, years earlier. Living a happy, quiet life by herself in the mountains of Colorado amongst. Jack takes notice after almost a year of this mysterious customer coming and decides it’s time to introduce herself to Lucan and he realizes she is the light in his darkness. Although not everyone is as enamored with Jack as Lucan is. A threat on Lucan’s life during a weekend in Vegas brings the realization that Lucan brings the darkness into her world. Is she prepared for it? This larger than life man doesn’t just take over her life, he takes over her body and her heart.

 Excerpt from Chapter 11

Who is this girl? I’m so caught off guard it’s all I can do to keep my mouth closed. I stopped listening to her babble and took a step into her, walking her slowly back till her back is against the wall. Her eyes are huge and her lips are slightly parted. I bring my hands up to her face, my thumbs barely touching her cheeks as I glide them back and forth. I pull her to me, slipping a hand around her neck and brushing my lips over hers. I pull back, putting my forehead against hers. Closing my eyes, I inhale her deeply. I can smell the wine and chocolate on her. The underlying dessert scented lotion from earlier, still lingering on her skin. I could eat her up.


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Beating writers block and taking on new content