Eze Chukwu graduated top of his class in
Mechanical Engineering at UNILAG in ’65, but no
job came. His father’s pension stopped when the
military froze civil service pay. He slept in
the compound of his uncle’s Lagos workshop,
eating garri with watereddown palm wine,
watching the city choke on its own smoke.
The blackout began in ’66 — not from generator
failure, but because the government passed the
Breath Act. No one could exhale freely anymore.
The new power stations, built by foreign
engineers and blessed by Pentecostal prophets,
siphoned exhalations from citizens — one breath
per day, collected through iron collars welded
at the neck. Children under twelve were exempt.
Adults who refused to wear the collar vanished
into the Eastern Zone.
Chukwu’s sister, Nneka, a theology student at
the University of Ibadan, wore hers with pride.
She said the Lord was cleansing the land. But on
the eve of her twentyfirst birthday, she removed
it during prayer and disappeared. The police
said she was “reclaimed.” The church said she
was raptured. The street said she went to Aba —
where the old radio towers still hummed with
preAct signals, and people whispered of a black
market for breath.
Chukwu stole his uncle’s broken motorcycle,
painted over the collar port with tar, and rode
east through villages where children still
laughed without fear. In Onitsha, he saw a man
die after forgetting to exhale into his collar —
his lungs collapsed like wet paper. The rule bit:
No sibling may share a breath. Violators are
marked with the iron mark of Cain. He remembered
how Nneka used to blow air into his face when he
was sick, whispering, “I give you mine.” That
was before the Act.
He reached Aba in the rain. The city was lit by
flickering kerosene lamps and the glow of stolen
breathbatteries. In a basement behind St.
Matthew’s Cathedral, he found her. Not dead. Not
raptured. Wearing a collar made of human hair
and cowrie shells — the old way. She had joined
the Underground, who believed the breath was not
energy, but memory — and the state was stealing
their history.
She handed him a tin can full of air. “This is
Mama’s last exhale before she died in ’59,” she
said. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
The soldiers came at dawn. They didn’t shoot.
They welded new collars — one around his neck,
one around hers. Then they dragged them to the
square. The crowd watched. No one cried.
They forced them to stand backtoback. One collar
was wired to the grid. The other was empty.
The order came: Exhale together.
Chukwu held his breath. Nneka did too.
The grid surged. Lights across Aba flared white.
Then died.
The soldiers screamed. The prophets wept.
And in the silence, for the first time since ’66,
the wind blew free.
They were taken. But the city remembered how to
breathe.
