Eight Breaths and a Half

Photo: Gary Meulemans

Death stood by Chidimma's bedside, its talons long and sharp, a greenish brown venom dripping from its impossibly black teeth.

“Please, please, leave her for me,” Ujunwa pleaded with the creature that reeked of hell, but it paid her no heed. 

“Please! I will do anything, I will give anything, just leave her for me,” she screamed, but her words meant nothing, her pleas nothing but a mere waste of breath and energy as death reached for Chidimma at a speed Ujunwa could not track, and darkness fell. 

* * *

Torn out of the recurring dream with a gasp and a silent scream, Ujunwa’s sweaty hand found its way to her heaving chest as her eyes locked onto her sister’s frail frame on the hospital bed.

She watched her facial muscles tense when her chest rose—up.

Then heaved a silent sigh of relief when her face relaxed as her chest retracted—down.

One, she counted silently. 

“Was it worth it?” she had screamed at her parents the previous night, her eyes burning with a fire that could only be rivalled by the burning ache in her chest.

Her father had opened his mouth to give a response but had decided against it, leaving his mouth hanging open, a brief emotion flashing through his clouded eyes. Her mother rambled some words, words that sounded like apologies, words that Ujunwa refused to acknowledge.

Up.

Down.

Two.

Love.

That was the genesis of their problem, the very root of their affliction—mindless, senseless love. Love that pushed two individuals with the AS genotype to damn all consequences and get married. Stupid, foolish love!

“We don't have to give birth, we can easily adopt. Besides, modern medicine has made everything easy. We will find a way around it.” That was Ujunwa’s mother’s argument when her own father opposed her marriage to the love of her life.

An argument she did not bother to uphold.

Up.

Down.

Three.

God must have been on active duty when Ujunwa was conceived, his hawk eyes scanning the Nwaozor’s matrimonial bedroom as he observed their most intimate act, his wide hands stretched forward to catch the sickle cell genes racing towards each other, handpicking the healthy cells and merging them, ensuring she got the best of both parents.

Ujunwa could only imagine the relief her parents felt when she was born.

But the heart of man is impossibly insatiable, and it was greed—careless, selfish greed—that caused her mother to embark on the journey of motherhood for the second time when Ujunwa was six years old, hoping that the God that did it the first time would do it again. 

The second journey failed to attract the notice of the Most High as the eyes of the Lord had relocated and found a new family to leer at.

Consequently, when Chidimma was born, it was guilt, not relief, that clouded her parents’ faces, but they were not the only ones affected by their mistake.

Up.

Down.

Four.

Having been an only child for seven years, Ujunwa had gotten used to being the centre of her parents’ world, a position that Chidimma effortlessly ripped away from her, taking everything that was once hers: her parents, her toys, her books, her old clothes that she was not ready to give away, even her blood which her parents cajoled her into giving.

The little girl harboured hatred in her heart, hatred for her parents for always prioritising Chidimma’s needs, hatred for Chidimma for being a demanding child, and most especially, hatred for God, for giving a sick child to her parents.

Up.

Down.

Five.

She found comfort in isolation, and in isolation, she traversed the world through books and found her superpower in patterns and calculation.

Numbers leapt at her at every corner she turned, in patterns of ones and twos and sometimes fives, but it was the number three multiplied by itself that she was most endeared to, an endearment that bordered on obsession. And soon it became the hero in her story.

Ujunwa was barely twelve and very impressionable when it happened.

Her parents had gone to the drug store to get medications, leaving her alone with Chidimma, who was in a malaria-induced sleep. 

“We will be back in a few minutes,” they had said.

But a few minutes were more than enough for everything to go to hell. 

Up.

Down.

Six.

Ujunwa could still remember her sister’s grunts and moans. The sizzling pain that had shot through the girl’s bones felt as though they were echoed into hers.

She had watched helplessly as Chidimma writhed and rolled, muttering incoherent words, with her breath catching on each word as the cords in her neck became more and more visible. 

Tired of doing nothing, she had rushed into their parents’ room and grabbed the heating pad she had seen her mother use whenever her sister's crisis flared up.

“Where should I put this? Where is the pain coming from?”

“Everywhere! My che ches, ma . . . my back, my feet, my feet, my han—” 

“Mum . . . mummy, fi . . . fi . . . fi . . . fire.”

“Fire in my bones. It’s burning. I’m burning!”

Her sister's broken sobs were still stuck in her brain; her head had them on constant replay like a malfunctioning radio.

She had placed the heating pad on her chest, then her back, alternating between all the parts of her body she had blurted out, but nothing seemed to work as Chidimma was trapped in her mind, where nothing but pain and anguish existed.

Up.

Down.

Seven.

At a loss for what to do, Ujunwa had held her sister and counted her breaths, waiting impatiently for their parents to return. Each breath taken painstakingly through clenched jaws and pinched lips was a win.

It could not have been a coincidence that as Chidimma's chest came down for the ninth time, their parents walked in, hand in hand, laughter peeling off their faces.

The sight of their daughters was enough to wipe the humour off their faces and send them into panic mode.

Chidimma was rushed to the hospital, and this time, Ujunwa followed voluntarily.

At the hospital, Chidimma underwent a stem cell transplant with Ujunwa as her donor.

After the procedure, Ujunwa stayed by her sister’s bedside, reading the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” to her. It was her favourite story, one that she had long refused to share with Chidimma.

Up.

Down.

Eight.

It had been ten years since the unfortunate incident, and Chidimma was having a late relapse.

Ujunwa was old enough to know that counting her sister's breath wouldn't make any difference; however, she had built her life around the number nine, her obsession solidified by that first episode.

Three stutters three times to make her lies more believable.

Three flicks of her pen, three times before shading an answer to an uncertain question.

Three taps with her three middle fingers, three times, to ease her fear of the needle whenever she was faced with an injection.

Three taps of her feet, three times, to calm her nerves.

She had gone as far as studying numbers in the United States, and if there was anything she was sure of, it was that if her sister could breathe up to nine times, she would be fine.

Up.

Down.

Nine.

From the corner of her eye, Ujunwa saw Chidimma's hand twitch and immediately rushed to her side.

“Dimma.”

“Mmmm,” her sister grunted, bursting into a coughing fit.

Ujunwa's body worked on autopilot as she lifted the cup of water by the bedside and fed it to her sister. 

“Are you okay?” she asked. 

But instead of answering, Chidimma’s eye lit up with a sad smile. “Can you read me a story?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

“Sure!”

She hadn't read Chidimma a story since Chidimma discovered Wattpad at age nine and declared herself an adult.

“But I will have to—” 

She swallowed the rest of her words as her eyes caught the book her sister held up.

“Diary of a Wimpy Kid?” she asked, even though she could clearly see the name written out boldly on the book.

“I miss hearing you read it,” Chidimma said.

Without any objection, Ujunwa took the book and started reading.

As she read, her voice broke, and tears left unshed for years gathered in her eyes. It was the same story she had read to her as a child, the same storybook she had once refused to share with her.

Ujunwa's clouded eyes were still on the book, her broken voice still reading out the words when she felt Chidimma's cold hand on her face, wiping off tears she didn't know had escaped.

“I don't want to die,” Chidimma's fragile voice snapped her out of the maze of memories.

Looking up at her sister, Ujunwa caught a glimpse of the fear that clouded her brown eyes, fear that Ujunwa had never seen before.

“You won't,” she replied, blinking rapidly to ward off the tears that had begun to form in hers.

“But I don't want to live like this either.”

“You won’t.”

“You're lucky, so so lucky.”

Ujunwa didn’t think of herself as lucky, not with the doubts rooted in her heart, not with the soul-crushing anxiety that plagued her mind, not with the nightmares she had to live with. Yet she nodded.

“So full of life and energy. You get to live, Uju. You get to live and be happy, without this—” She paused. Ujunwa said nothing, waiting for her to continue, to give words to her plight. 

“—this pain. Without this fire, this harrowing, excruciating agony. I envy you.”

“Please don't.” 

“I envy you and every breath you take,” Chidimma kept on as though she had not heard her, “every thoughtless, effortless breath you take.”

“You can do anything you want, you can, you can, fall in love tomorrow without a single care in the world. Without a single thought to genotype and all that drama” 

Ujunwa fought the urge to laugh; she couldn't care less about love and those things, but she knew better than to say that to Chidimma, so instead she said, “I kind of envy you too.”

“You do?” Chidimma asked, a yawn overtaking her words.

“You always have a smile on your face even when the world is beating you up, almost like your superpower is joy and gratitude,” Ujunwa said, and Chidimma's lips curved into a shy smile, lightening up her solemn face.

“Like right now. How do you do it?”

Chidimma shrugged lazily, then winced.

“When you— when you have limited time,” she said, her facial muscles tightening as she fought another yawn.

“When youuu haveeeea limiteddd timeeeon earth,” she repeated, “you’ll learn . . . you’ll learn to find pleasure in the little—” Her voice trailed off, her body relaxing into the mattress, as her laboured breathing filled the room and she finally succumbed to the sedatives coursing through her system.

* * *

Distressed groans found their way into Ujunwa's dream, jolting her awake, and she immediately rushed to her sister's side, hoping to wake her from whatever nightmare was plaguing her.

But Chidimma was not sleeping. Her eyes were open, darting around, while her hands flailed weakly on the hospital bed as she rambled in disjointed words.

Trying to get her attention, Ujunwa touched her lightly, but her eyes were unseeing and her body unresponsive. She was gone, locked in that dark place where only pain and anguish existed, where she could neither see nor hear, where she couldn't feel the real world or interact with the people in it.

Panicking, Ujunwa rummaged through her bag, her hands shaking as she brought her phone out and called the doctor. She couldn’t recognise the broken voice with which she screamed at the doctor and ordered her to be at her sister’s ward immediately.

She sat beside her sister’s bed and tapped her feet, her legs shaking as she watched her sister’s chest rise slowly. 

One, two, three.

She waited for it to return, but it did not.

One two three!

Her mind wandered into places she had never allowed it to before, a place filled with “what ifs”.

One two three!

Just when she thought it wouldn't, it retracted slowly.

One breath!

Ujunwa let go of the breath she did not know she had been holding. She had no need to worry, Chidimma would breathe up to nine times, and the doctor would make it in time.

Upppp!

Down!

Two breaths!

She wished she had studied medicine, wished that all the time she had spent in Massachusetts, chasing the number 9 in mathematics, she had invested in medicine, so that she could save her sister's life, instead of sitting around, doing a countdown.

Upppp!

Down!

Three breaths!

She sometimes wished she were the one who was born sick, the one during whose conception God’s eyes had strayed. 

Upppp!

Down!

Four breaths!

Why hadn't God shared the sickle cell gene between them? That way, they could both be AS in peace.

Upppp!

Down!

Five breaths!

“Survivor’s guilt.” That was what her therapist said she suffered from, but she knew it was more from that, what she felt was well deserved guilt, guilt for the years she treated her sister like a burden, guilt from the fact that her sister was always having a faceoff with death while she was living her best life.

Upppp!

Down!

Six breaths

Chidimma deserved to live. More than anyone else in the world, Chidimma deserved life. Her heart deserved to keep beating, no matter the cost.

Upppp!

Down!

Seven breaths!

She would never forgive her parents. For the pain Chidimma went through every day, for the despair she felt, for the days she wasted lying in the hospital, Ujunwa would never forgive them. 

Upppp!

Down!

Eight breaths!

She said a word of prayer, rededicating her life to Christ and promising him heaven and earth if Chidimma made it out of the hospital. It was ironic: her feud with God started because of her sister, and it was ending because of her.

Upppp!

Chidimma's chest rose for the last time, and Ujunwa’s newly found faith rose with it.

But when it was supposed to come down, it did not.

The door opened a second later, and the doctor walked in. Ujunwa knew it was too late. The rock forming in the place her heart used to be told her it was too late, a second too late, half a breath too late.

---

Uchechukwu Onyinyechukwu Onowu is a Nigerian writer, poet, and storyteller passionate about exploring Africa's rich history, culture, and spirituality through her works. As a feminist, she leverages her writing to amplify important conversations and advocate for social change. Balancing her studies in Chemical Engineering at Nnamdi Azikiwe University with her creative pursuits, Uchechukwu finds solace in writing, reading novels, and immersing herself in quality music. Her stories serve as a testament to the power of storytelling in reflecting the world and inspiring meaningful dialogue.

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