SEVEN MINUTES AFTER I DIE

IN YOUR (OWN) ARMS

Cold wind blows. The chills are coming down.

Bright is sitting by the grave again; this is the seventh time he’s been there since she was laid to rest. Each time, he spends hours through the night, staring, as he is now, at Bridget’s grave.

The tears, they’re already streaming down his face. Each struggling to make it down to his chest first, and remind him of the fond hole in his heart that might never be filled. Nobody understands the emotional tortures of forbidden love as he does. The whims that it brought; and its capricious brothers. He had felt the whips from its frowning eyes, tear endlessly into his skin to draw out blood and leave death marks. He still feels pain now but it’s a different kind. The kind that comes from a battle lost; two battles lost. The battle of trying to save her, and of trying to keep her.

“Why did you have to leave so soon?” He cries aloud, as he does every other night. He sinks to his knees in front of the grave.  BRIDGET IHIOMA 1998-2023 is staring down at him. The letters on the inscriptions look like they’re in tears too. The pain must have gotten to them.

Bright feels she is there with him. He feels she can hear him. But she cannot speak back to him or touch him because she’s no longer of flesh and blood. But if only there could be a momentary glitch in the universe, so that he could see her again. Or touch her even for one second. “Is that too much to ask?” He asks no one in particular. He knows it is never going to happen, seeing her, feeling her warmth, in this world, unless he digs through her grave and exhumes her decaying body.

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Those scattered images are gathering up in his mind again as they do every other night. The first one, of when he noticed that no sound, movement or reactions was coming from her anymore. Her body lying there cold and still. He had begun to shake her vehemently as though that would bring her back to life. Then guilt, had made him dress up quickly before any other thing. He had placed his head on her chest. No beats. In hindsight, he could see the terror in his own eyes; he could feel the hairs on his skin as they rose like elephant grasses in June. All that before he took her to the hospital.

The second image, of him dragging the doctor by the coat when he announced to him that she was dead. He hadn’t let the doctor finish the statement he had started with “I’m sorry…” before grabbing his coat so hard he almost tore it. He had rushed into the ward seeing stars. Bridget’s lifeless body glistened like all was right. Like she was just asleep. Like it was a prank. That was when he had sunk to his knees in tears. All that before calling father and mother.

The third image contained pictures of their several trips to Ugwu Di Nso. Bridget hated those trips, but he had managed to convince her that there was hope. The first trip came after she had fainted on the balcony and hit her head against the wall. Their neighbor, Mrs. Uche, advised them to go.

“That was how my heart disease disappeared ooh. Don’t joke with this kind of miracles.” she had said. “Mgbidi is a place for the weak like us. Go there and thank me later.” She had added. There were several other testimonies. They had to go, at the very least to quash the rumors that Bridget was an Ogbanje, sent to torment her parents before she died in inexplicable circumstances. When they got to the fountain for the first time, people were screaming in joy. “I can see” here, “I can walk” there. Bridget still didn’t believe any of it. She stepped into the water and nothing happened. “Shenanigans!” was all she sneered and walked right off the black water, and headed back home. Ugwu Di Nso was fake. They realized it much later as the number of people who visited the fountain kept declining by each trip. Her condition had gotten worse. And only when she nearly died inside the bathroom did they do what they should have done in the very beginning- take her to the hospital.

That was the last image, of the doctor reading the test results to them. The same doctor that would later pronounce Bridget dead. Bright called him the doctor of doom. He, the doctor, confirmed though, that Bridget was not an Ogbanje or any type of evil spirit sent to torment her parents. That she was in fact an SCT. The kind of people that suffer from sickle cell disease. 

A SEED OF MISTAKE

I think it was that evening of October 11, 2018; the evening the doctor read us the test results. That was when I fell in love with you, Bridget. Maybe I had been all along, but that moment threw the reality at me and I couldn’t handle it. The hopelessness, the fear, all of it. As I listened to him say “Don’t stress yourself, don’t do any hard work” and blah blah blah; my heart succumbed to you. Although, I would later realize just how much you loved me too, I need you to know that I would never regret any of it. Ever. I might sound like a broken record but loving you is the best thing that ever happened to my life. Even though I apologize deeply for how it ended but believe me, Bridget, my heart will never love another.

Do you remember the first time we made love? That night I was in my room watching wrestling when you walked in. You had just returned from your monthly check up. Your beauty radiating as usual. Do you remember the first time you kissed me, what I said? I said “We shouldn’t be doing this…” and your response was “I’m the mistake of my parents.” I had looked at your face and seen no tears. All I saw was confidence, and longing. When you said “it doesn’t matter” I knew you were right, and I was wrong for even doubting you for a second. Each time we made love, I fell for you a thousand times over, Bridget. What have you done to me? Why did you have to leave?

Do you think anyone knew that we were in love? Because with the way we threw caution in the wind those last few months before your death, I think some people might have noticed. But it doesn’t matter right? Because what we share is forever.

Bridget, I wrote you a poem I was going to send to you before death took you away. I asked you to be the seven minutes after I die. Do you know what that means? Do you know that the human brain lives for seven minutes after the last breath? Yes, that is true. It stays on, playing the best memories of a person’s life. You’re the best memory of my life, and when I die, you’ll be my last seven minutes.

SHADOWS IN THE AIR

There’s no end in sight. You wish again, you were the one with the sickness so that she would still be alive. You wish you could die so that she would live again. You wish a lot of things that will never happen. You think for a moment about killing yourself and going to meet her. What if there’s a world after this one? Where only the dead lived? You would hold her hands and get to kiss her again. You don’t believe in afterlife but there’s a slim chance of it being real. Your tongue is tired and you’re not even speaking. The tears are gone from your eyes now; but you’re still kneeling before the grave, and you will remain like that till 5am.

You really don’t know when it would end. For as much pain this place brings you, it gives you the kind of peace that even you cannot describe. You feel like there are shadows in the air, her shadow in a million forms telling you it is going to be okay.

You remember your words at her burial. The dirge you sung her that moved everyone to tears. How you had praised her fighting spirit. “Bridget is a warrior” you said. You knew everyone would interpret it as a different kind of warrior- the kind of warrior for SCT socials- but that wasn’t the warrior you meant. You didn’t even know the warrior you meant.

You remember in that same speech, how you had detailed her life from childhood. The good times, and the not-so-good ones. No one knew her like you, no one. You remember telling the crowd how much she meant to you and how her memory would stay with you forever. But there’s a part you didn’t tell them; a part you would never tell anyone. They’ll never know you were in love with your twin sister. They’ll never know that she died while having sex with you.