The Void Between Hearts ~~ongoing~~

46. Ivan

"Nope."

"Then let me hear all about it."

"Where do I even start?" She laughs. "Okay. There's find Ivan." She makes air quotes.

I laugh. She joins me.

"Check." I say.

"Help Mom find love."

"That's definitely a check. A big glaring check." I emphasize.

She laughs. "Kiss a boy you love."

"No..." My eyes widen. "You're kidding."

"I'm not kidding. That was for, I think for my fourteenth year."

"Was that me?"

She nods, her cheeks flushing in unison to her smile. "Check."

"Check! Check! Check!" I say.

She laughs.

"What else? I'm loving this list. Little Boma was cute." I say.

She smirks. "Read a book about death."

"Oh. Uhm. That's not exactly cute," I say.

She laughs.

"So? Have you done that?" I ask

"Yes, I still read it some days."

"Must be 'a' book."

"Dying Like The Sun; A Void by Sarah Okosi. It's the only book I've read outside school books, that's if you don't count Purple Hibiscus, Wuthering Heights, The Lion and The Jewel and, Another Visa Story."

"I think the only one you mentioned that I haven't read is Another Visa Story and of course the Dying Like The Sun." I say.

"DLTS was a gift from Dr. Hart to all her patients on their sixteenth birthday, and I got it last year. Another Visa Story was a Junior WAEC reccomend. There was another but I've forgotten the title," she says. "So, professor, what other books have you read?"

I look at her briefly, and her eyes glow into a smile. "The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, that was recommended for SAT's and TOEFL. All the works of Shakespeare, my favourite being his tragedies, Macbeth especially, I also read Lord Of The Flies, a lot of world war two memoirs."

Hitler, Josef Mengele, the concentration camps with the gas chambers, the weird human transplantation experiments, The stories of Mengele Twins and the people in striped pyjamas, how The Jews were rounded up in Poland, Denmark and other European countries and taken to Auschwitz in jammed fright trains, how most Jewish babies and old people were killed.

I shake the thought out of my mind when she sighs.

"Tragedy, I'm used to it." She says.

"Uhm. I think I've had enough of sad bucket list, cute bucket list please. "

She laughs at my attempt to skip the heavy stuff.

"Grow some hips." she says.

"Check."

"Uh. Uh," she nods. "Have you seen Chinny? We were both flat at some point."

"Girls don't always see themselves for who they really are. " I tell her.

She laughs.

"What else is on your cute list?" I ask

"Well there's own your debit card, unchecked, get your driver's licence, unchecked, Disneyland bicycling with Chinny, not going to happen, shopping spree at Toys'R'us, definitely not going to happen."

"So what would you rather do now?"

"To see all the most beautiful sunsets in the world." She replies with a dreamy smile.

"How long do we have?" I ask

She laughs. " Ivan, you're not dying, I am, and I have roughly four months left."

Something moves in the bushes behind us.

We turn around.

Chinny steps out with tears trickling down her cheeks, her eyes hazy with more to come.

"You're dying?" She addresses the question to Boma.

I turn to Boma, she's lost with her jaw dropped.

She heard our conversation.
How much did she hear?