It has no ending. This pain. This excruciation that clothes her body like icy cold. She clutches her stomach, gasping, lurching forward as it comes again. Rosie’s eyes dilate. She grunts and crashes against the ceramic-tiled floor as though shoved by an angry passerby in a crowded market. As though her intestines were being gutted out. A whimper courses through her.

She sniffs, a swirling mist pivoting her eyes, so she gropes the floor, crawling to the little table away from her for support. What will it cost her to end this? To curb this pain that has rid her of the taste of life, the feeling of joyfulness? This anguish can be a thread that restricts you until agony claws your skin. The more she tries to muffle her cries, the weaker she becomes. The stronger the pain eats into her, the more the prisms between life and death becomes visible to her. Her eyes roll in relief. Short-lived. She gropes herself up slowly.

What would life have been without pain for her? It’s too utopian for her imagination. Rosie sighs and stands, lumbering to the kitchen. She grabs a tumbler, filling it with water. Her hand trembles, a reminder that it never parts from her. A reminder that this soreness clings to her like a second skin. Like unwanted weeds in a scrubby farm.

She stumps to the microwave and brings out the melon soup her mother bought in her last visitation. Her mother had stared at her with an affection that unnerved her. This is the reality she was born into. This is the pain, the dystopian life she can’t escape. To escape means to die. Can she do that? To end it all and have the peace that seems far-fetched from her. To have the tranquility her body and soul longs for. The distress was still lurking like a shadowy apparition that always sends shivers slithering across her skin.

“Chidindu, are you sure I shouldn’t stay with you?” her mother had said, her voice filtering through Rosie’s mind, which had been amok with endless possibilities of how she would cope without her. She could feel her mother’s restlessness, she could taste the fear exuding from her like newly bought perfume.

“I’m fine, Mom. See, I’ve been doing well.” Rosie tried to smile. She tried to give an assurance that she could do this. She had been doing it, hadn’t she? But the smile has never been authentic. It felt so faux, so bogus on her lips.

“I still wonder why you chose to live alone when we know you’re always sickler. Anyway, I’m going. And don’t forget to call if you need anything.” She watched her mother flip her wrapper, adjust her scarf, and cull her handbag from the bed, beginning to thread her way out. Rosie wishes the crunches of her mother’s waning feet were like the pain that plagued her, but it didn’t go that way.

She heads back to her room now, sitting on the bed and munching on her food slowly, threading it as though scouring a strange land for the first time. Rosie drops her food beside her on the bed, stretching her hand to rummage through her little drawer. She culls out a container, unsure of which medication it is. She opens it, takes a sniff. She tries to flip it sideways to see its name when it comes again.

The pain.

Rosie gasps, the container slipping from her grip. The pills litter the floor. Anguish rakes through her body. First, her belly. She grabs at it. Then, her arms. They weaken and descend like deflated balloons. Her neck follows. She gurgles, crying out. She flaps the air as though it’s something she can chase. Something discernible and killable. Rosie stares at the pills littering the floor. Three at arm’s length if she crawls forward, but what pill is that? Painkiller? The drugs she bought a week ago? The one she chose over a sniper to kill herself with? She’s afraid she will give in to the will of death, to let them all go, yet badly wants to stay alive. The contradiction to end it all gnawing at her.

A wail interrupts her thoughts.

Rosie struggles to sit upright, falling flat on her stomach. She tries and fails. She tries again, in vain. She begins to bite her tongue as the pain increases. Where is her phone, and who’s calling now? She crawls forward to grab the spilled pills, realizing they are far from her hold.

Painkiller? The pills to overdose on? Hesitation ghosts her expression, her lips quivering, hands trembling in exhaustion. She parts her lips and pries the pills into her mouth, munching it quickly. No, no, it can’t be. Realization dawns on her, eyes widen.

Rosie pulls herself up through whines and grabs her phone. She needs to call someone before she goes. Her sister’s name blinks on her phone screen. Rosie crinkles her brows as a numbness skids down her skin.

Are her parents fighting again? Her sister’s calls are always a recollection of their parents’ fights. Of her father’s wrath descending on their mother, his arms a vessel of inebriated strength as he’d rain blows on her body with unholy fury when drunk. His words, like the drunkard he is, would stumble out, unhindered by any stuttering. His anger would spread like venom on anyone who dared come close. Even her siblings distanced themselves. Their fights had always been a macabre theater of domestic discord to her, and she had to leave for her sanity.

Her phone begins to vibrate before she can pick it. It blinks her friend’s name, Ọma. “Hello.”

“Jesus, Rosie, your sister just called me. She has been trying to reach you, but it always goes unanswered.” A loud huff graces her hearing. Ọma exhaling. “Where are you?”

“Ho…me…” she stutters, gasping. Rosie presses her lips tighter as the pill begins to take effect.

“Are you alright? I’m coming.” When she comes, what will she see? Her limp body? Her froth-filled mouth? Her pale eyes that probe at the grotesque face of death?

“O..ma…” she struggles to choke out the word. But the call is disconnected. Her phone begins to ring again with a familiar name like the back of her hand. It’s saved as ‘Forever’ with a love-shaped emoji beside it. Her boyfriend, who traveled weeks ago. She had told her mother she doesn’t live alone. She lives with her heartthrob, but will that surpass her mother’s fear? Even now, it’s useless. She can’t assure her man forever, anymore. She’s leaving him heartbroken, sored with an inevitable grief like the pain leaving her body now.

Her phone stops blinking. Rosie drops it, arms failing her. It starts to blink again, this time her father, who hasn’t called her for months now remembers she exists. She wonders what he’ll think of her decision. What he’ll feel when he discovers her dead. She could almost hear his sober voice in her head: “What a shame. Of all the decisions you could have made, you chose to die, Chibundu.”

But she never chose this pain.

Author’s Biography

Ikechukwu Henry won the RoNovella contest and was awarded The tenacious writer for fiction and nonfiction, 2022. He’s a myth enthusiast and ardent reader of fiction, and he tweets at @ Ikechukwuhenry_. His works have appeared or forthcoming on Kahalari Review, Afrihill Press, Swim Press, The AfterPast Review, Icreative Review and others.