Outside, his phone rang. It was his mother’s nurse.
“Tunday, your mother’s medication is almost finished.”
He closed his eyes. “Okay. I’m coming.”
That night, he sat on the thin mattress in his one-room apartment, staring at the numbers in his bank account. Rent. Food. Transport. Hospital bills. School fees for his sister.
Savings disappear quickly when life starts collecting debts.
He lay down and stared at the wall.
One question kept knocking inside his head:
Why did you speak?
Then another voice answered, softer but stronger:
Because silence would have made you a coward in your own eyes.
He remembered his father’s words from years ago, spoken beneath a mango tree in their village:
“A man who protects only himself will one day discover he has no self left to protect.”
Still, courage did not pay bills.
The next morning, reality returned like an unpaid debt. Tunday put on his best shirt and went searching for work. He visited four offices, filled out forms, smiled through hunger, and heard the same empty sentence again and again:
“We’ll call you.”
He knew what that meant.
At a roadside restaurant, he ate the cheapest meal he could find—beans and bread—and tried not to think about how little money remained.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
“Hello?”
“Is this Tunday Aibio?”
“Yes.”
“This is Carrier Holdings HR. We need you to come in tomorrow morning for a brief signing.”
“Signing for what?”
“A document. Be here by nine.”
The line went dead.
