Safe

Twenty Four

It was almost nine pm and the power was out. A rechargable lamp sat on the nightstand emitting a soft, whirring noise that was supposed to be soothing but was doing worse to the occupant of the room than the heat and stillness.
Hot and irritated, Nike rolled out of bed and went to double check the windows. They were open but were unfortunately only letting in more hot, heavy air.
The power had gone out about an hour before and the heat was starting to drive her crazy. It also annoyed her that she couldn't afford a generator like the one at her parents home that had kept her insulated from the Nigerian reality of losing power every few hours.
She'd been forced to retire to bed with nothing else to do and found that she did not enjoy being confined to one course of action. Frustrated, she picked up her phone to check the time for the nth time in the past hour, grabbed the lamp and headed to the kitchen where she took a long, much needed drink of water. The heat must have screwed with her head because the next thing she knew, she was shrugging off her night gown and sliding open her balcony door in her underwear.
Despite the heat, the tiled floor felt cool against her feet as she stepped into the balcony and it was so reliving that she found herself stretching out on the ground to savor the much needed comfort.
With the comfort of the cool floor against her skin, Nike found herself finally relaxing and soon began to doze off.
She was unfortunately startled awake a while later by a sudden burst of light and the shrill sound of the alarm that signified the power returning. Nike sat up in a daze, rubbing her eyes to clear her vision and scrambled to her feet once she realized she was laying nearly naked on her balcony floor, in full view of any neighbours who could be out savouring the cool air like her.
The door slid shut heavily behind her as she made it inside and instinctively, she reached for the light switch and flipped it so the living room was engulfed in darkness again. Then for no reason at all, she began to cry. At first, the tears leaked from the sides of her tightly shut eyes as she pressed the heels of her palms against them accompanied by the shaky breaths she was taking in an attempt to control herself. Then the dam burst and Nike found herself sinking to the floor in tears, trying desperately to breathe through the heavy, gut wrenching sobs that were escaping her. All that clouded her mind was how much it all hurt. Her head hurt, her chest hurt, even drawing a single breath in hurt and she wanted it all to go away.
It was a good thing there was no one to see her that way because to an onlooker, she would just be a broken mass of limbs on the floor, shivering violently and absently crawling towards her earlier discarded night gown. She made a sorry sight, maybe even a pathetic one.
Later when the dam had emptied and she was spent, she laid on the floor, staring blindly at the ceiling, relearning how to breathe and savouring the expansion of her lungs.
Nike had never found herself in a situation like that before and lying there with what felt like her soul hovering over her body, she realized she didn't recognize herself. She was fat– much bigger than she'd ever been in her life– and she felt so broken that she wondered if she even owned the body laying on the floor. The biggest she'd ever been in her life was a size 8 so it was terrifying to realize she didn't fit into her sweatpants anymore. The thought made her want to vomit and she rolled over onto her chest before reaching out to brace herself on the couch.
It took her almost ten minutes to get off the floor and make it down the hall to her bedroom where she'd left her phone. She grabbed it and collapsed into the bed. She knew what she had to do but she didn't know if she had the strength. Courage was expensive but eventually, her fingers dialed the number and someone picked up after two rings.
"Hello, welcome to Mentally Aware Ng. My name is Tobechukwu, how may I help you?"
Nike opened her mouth but her tongue must have forgotten how to speak because nothing came out.
"Are you there? Do you need me to stay on the line?" The voice questioned. Nike nodded vehemently, silent tears streaming down her face again.
To her relief, the operator responded, "I'll stay on the line. Whenever you're ready." He said.
At that, she began to cry again, audibly this time so that poor Tobe had to sit and listen to her wail into the phone for almost ten minutes. She supposed he didn't mind it or why would he be working at a mental health care organization.
"Are you alright?" He asked when she finally stopped crying.
"No." She whispered. "No, I'm not."
"Would you like to tell me about it?"
And so she did. The line was toll free so there was no limitation to how long they could converse and after Tobe assured her that she could remain anonymous, she told him everything.
About that Monday morning when it had all gone wrong, about the cursed shoes that had led her to tearing her family apart and about passing out on her kitchen floor for no reason one day. And he listened. He didn't try to make jokes or cheer her up. He just listened.
He listened until the words stopped coming and her breath became shallow and steady and from an entirely different city, wished she had someone there to hold her hand.
•
•
      Nike drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the next day. When morning came, she'd pulled a sleep mask over her eyes to keep out the glare of the sun and gone back to sleep.
She'd slept almost ten hours and woke up even more tired than she'd been when she fell asleep.
Food was as appealing to her as a cold room was to fish, she wanted nothing to do with it despite the gnawing sensation in her stomach.
Her phone was dead but she had no desire to charge it. No one was going to call her anyway, there was no use so she laid in bed for hours more, stifled under the weight of her comforter and her mind.
Her head began to hurt and she realized she'd fallen asleep again. Only then, she didn't know if she was actually awake. She thought she must be because she could feel the last warm rays of the quickly setting sun on her face but her mind disagreed.
She wasn't in her bed, she was on that dark bush path again running for her life. It didn't make sense, she'd fallen asleep in her bed.
Trying to block out the thoughts, she turned her head to the left and the right fearing that the anguish would burst right out of her head.
Living alone was lonely, she realized. There was no chance someone would burst into her room and find her choking on her imagination, no chance someone would hear if she found the strength to call for help.
           If she stayed where she was, she would die. Death was a frightening reality she couldn't face yet so she mustered all her remaining strength and pushed off from the bed. She didn't want to die. She was already the girl that lost her mind, she didn't want to be a dead girl.
Two steps was all it took for her knees to give way beneath her and she fell, hitting the floor harder than she thought was possible.
The pain stunned her and she cried out. The cry didn't sound like her. Her arm hurt. Her head too. Most of her body was on fire.
Then there were voices.
Someone was screaming at her and a sudden pain crashed into the side of her head. She screamed.
Suddenly more than before, it became clear. She was going to die. Here, alone.
Away from all the people she loved. People she left out of foolish anger and pride. They'd never know she was sorry.
Tears streamed down her face as she crawled, begging for life towards what she hoped was the door. She'd never felt so cold in her life, the room was fading fast and she knew as her eyes closed that they wouldn't open again.