David Kingsley woke up with his hand clutching a fistful of paper.
He didn't open his eyes immediately. He lay perfectly still on the thin, lumpy mattress, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. In the suspended reality between sleep and wakefulness, he prayed. He prayed that the night before had been a fever dream induced by cheap whiskey and hunger. He prayed that he hadn't sold his future to a man who smelled of ozone. But mostly, he prayed that the paper in his hand was still paper, and not dry leaves—the old Nigerian superstition about spirit money turning to trash in the light of day.
He squeezed his hand. The texture was undeniable. The fibrous, cotton-linen blend of American currency.
David opened his eyes.
The morning sun of Lagos was slicing through the gap in the curtains, a harsh, unforgiving beam of white light that illuminated the dust motes dancing in the air. He slowly unclenched his fist.
A hundred-dollar bill. Crumpled, warm from his body heat, but real.
He sat up, the movement sudden and violent. He grabbed his wallet from where it had fallen on the bedsheets. He dumped the contents onto the mattress. The bills tumbled out—a green waterfall against the stained grey sheets. He counted them, his hands shaking so hard he dropped the stack twice.
Ten thousand dollars.
In a country where the minimum wage struggled to buy a bag of rice, ten thousand dollars was a fortress. It was a weapon.
David stared at the pile. He should have felt joy. He should have been screaming, dancing, calculating the debts he could wipe out. Instead, he felt a cold knot of nausea in his stomach. The money didn't look like it belonged in the room. It looked like a glitch in the matrix, a vibrant, high-definition object rendered into a low-resolution world.
"I invest in distressed assets."
The Benefactor's voice echoed in his memory, perfectly preserved, devoid of the distortion that usually fades dreams.
David stood up and walked to the small, cracked mirror hanging over the sink. He looked at his reflection. He expected to see a mark. A brand on his forehead. Red eyes. Something to signify that he was now property of a silent partner.
But he looked exactly the same. The same tired eyes. The same stubble on his chin. The same hollow cheeks of a man who had been skipping meals to save for rent.
"It's just money," he whispered to the reflection. "It's just a loan."
But as he spoke, he noticed something. The mirror, which had been cracked down the middle for three years—a jagged scar from a time he had thrown a shoe at a cockroach—was whole.
David blinked. He ran his finger down the glass. Smooth. Unbroken. There was no seam. No glue. The glass was perfect, as if it had just come from the factory.
He pulled his hand back as if the glass were hot.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The sound of a heavy fist pounding on his front door shattered the silence. Dust rained down from the ceiling frame.
"Kingsley! Open this door! I know you are inside!"
The voice was gravel and rust. Mr. Balogun. The landlord.
David froze. Instinctively, the old fear surged up—the cowering, pathetic reflex of a man who owes money he doesn't have. He looked around for a place to hide, a place to scramble, an excuse to fabricate.
Bam! Bam!
"Today is today, Kingsley! No more stories! The police are on their way! I am throwing your rags in the gutter!"
David looked at the money on the bed. Then he looked at the door.
A strange sensation washed over him. The panic, which had been spiking a second ago, suddenly evaporated. It didn't fade naturally; it was removed. It was as if a noise-canceling headphone had been placed over his soul. His heartbeat slowed. His breathing leveled. The nausea in his stomach was replaced by a cold, metallic certainty.
Success will chase you, the Benefactor had said.
David didn't scramble. He didn't hide the money. He calmly gathered the bills, organized them into a neat stack, and placed them back into the wallet. He walked to the sink, splashed water on his face, and dried it with a towel.
"Kingsley! If you don't open this door, I will break it down!"
David walked to the door. He slid the bolt back.
He pulled the door open.
Mr. Balogun was a large man, built like a storage tank, with a face permanently etched in a scowl of skepticism. He was sweating profusely in the humid hallway, his agbada sticking to his chest. Behind him stood two younger men—area boys, hired muscle—holding metal bars. They looked bored but dangerous.
"Finally!" Balogun roared, stepping forward to invade David's space. "You think hiding will save you? Two months! Two months of stories! 'The bank transfer is pending,' 'my uncle is sending it.' You are a liar, David. A thief!"
He poked a sausage-like finger into David's chest.
"Out. Now. Everything goes outside. The boys will help you throw it."
David looked at the finger on his chest. He looked up at Balogun's sweating face.
In the past, David would have been pleading. He would have been on his knees, offering his watch, begging for one more week.
But today, the air around David felt... pressurized.
"Remove your hand," David said.
He didn't shout. He didn't raise his voice. He spoke with the quiet, bored tone of a man scolding a misbehaving pet.
Balogun blinked. The sheer audacity of the command stunned him. He didn't move his hand. "What did you say? You are mad? You are talking to me like—"
David moved.
It wasn't a martial arts move. It wasn't violent. David simply stepped forward, closing the distance so that he was inches from Balogun's face. The movement was so fluid, so predatory, that the two hired thugs took a subconscious step back.
"I said," David repeated, his voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to vibrate the air in the hallway, "remove your finger from my shirt. It is clean. Your hands are dirty."
Balogun felt a chill. It wasn't the air conditioning—there was none in the hallway. It was a primal biological warning. The kind a gazelle feels when the grass moves against the wind. He looked into David's eyes and saw something he couldn't name. It was the absence of fear. It was a void.
Slowly, involuntarily, Balogun lowered his hand.
"You... you have the money?" Balogun stammered, his bluster deflating. "If you don't have the money, don't waste my time."
David reached into his pocket. He didn't rush. He pulled out the wallet.
He didn't take out the Naira notes. He pulled out the dollars.
He peeled off five bills. Five hundred dollars.
"The rent is eighty thousand Naira," David said. "Five hundred dollars is... significantly more. Consider the excess a tip for your patience. And for the inconvenience of bringing your... associates."
He held the bills out.
Balogun stared at the green paper. His eyes widened. In Lagos, dollars were king. The exchange rate on the black market made this small stack worth months of rent.
"Is it... is it real?" Balogun asked, his voice trembling with greed.
"Go to the bureau de change and find out," David said. "But take it now, and leave. Or stand there and get nothing."
Balogun snatched the money. He held it up to the light, checking the watermark, rubbing the texture. His face transformed from anger to a grotesque, fawning delight.
"Ah, Mr. David!" Balogun laughed, a nervous, high-pitched sound. "You know I was just joking, eh? Just pressure from the wife. You are my best tenant! A good man!" He turned to the thugs. "Why are you standing there with iron? Get out! Go!"
The thugs looked confused, but they shuffled away down the hall.
Balogun turned back to David, a sheen of sweat still on his lip. He looked at David, really looked at him, and the smile faltered. He saw the stillness in David. He smelled the faint, sharp scent of ozone that drifted out of the apartment.
"You... you won lotto?" Balogun asked, taking a half-step back.
"Something like that," David said. "Mr. Balogun?"
"Yes, sir?" The 'sir' slipped out automatically.
"I will be moving out today. Keep the deposit. But never knock on my door again."
"Yes. Yes, of course."
David closed the door gently. He heard Balogun scurrying away down the hall, his footsteps heavy and fast, like he was running from a fire.
David leaned his back against the door. He exhaled.
His heart wasn't racing. His hands weren't shaking.
He felt... powerful.
But then, he felt the itch.
It started in his left pinky finger. A numbness. Like he had slept on it wrong. He rubbed it, but the sensation didn't return. He pinched the skin hard, digging his fingernail in until he saw a crescent moon of white.
Nothing. No pain. No touch.
He looked at the finger. It moved when he told it to. It looked normal. But to his brain, it was dead. A piece of meat attached to his hand.
I take a percentage of the intangibles, the stranger had said.
"A finger isn't intangible," David whispered to the empty room.
Or maybe it was the sensation of the finger. The neural connection. The feeling of touch.
He rubbed his thumb against the numb finger. It was like touching someone else's hand.
David walked back to the bed. He sat down next to the money.
"Small price," he said aloud, testing the words. "Just a numbness. For this? For the way Balogun looked at me?"
He picked up the stack of dollars again. The numbness in his finger was annoying, terrifying even, but the weight of the money was soothing. It was a balm.
He stood up and grabbed his duffel bag—the one with the broken zipper. He began to pack. He didn't pack everything. He left the worn-out shirts. He left the shoes with the holes in the soles. He left the books on business strategy that had never worked.
He packed only his documents, his passport, and the photo of his mother.
He dressed in the best clothes he had—a white shirt that was slightly yellowed at the collar and black trousers that were shiny from too much ironing.
He walked to the door, wallet in his pocket.
As he stepped out of the apartment building and into the blinding chaos of Yaba, the noise hit him. The roar of generators, the shouting of bus conductors, the honking of cars. It was a sonic assault.
Usually, David shrank from it. Usually, he walked with his head down, trying to be invisible, trying not to be a target for pickpockets or police.
Today, he walked straight.
He walked to the edge of the road. A yellow Danfo bus screeched to a halt in front of him, the conductor hanging out the door screaming "Obalende! Obalende!"
David ignored it. He raised his hand, signaling a sleek, air-conditioned sedan that was acting as a private taxi.
The car stopped.
David opened the door and slid into the cool leather interior.
"Where to, sir?" the driver asked. He didn't ask to see money first. He didn't look suspicious. He looked at David with respect.
David looked out the tinted window at the tenement building he was leaving behind. He saw the water stains on the walls. He saw the misery etched into the concrete.
He rubbed his numb finger against the leather seat. He couldn't feel the texture, but he knew it was expensive.
"The Island," David said. "Take me to Victoria Island. The Eko Hotel."
"Yes, sir."
The car pulled away, gliding over the potholes that would have rattled the bones of a lesser vehicle.
David leaned back and closed his eyes. The smell of the city—exhaust and dust—faded, replaced by the artificial pine of the car's air freshener.
But underneath the pine, faint but persistent, was the smell of ozone.
It was the smell of a storm that never ended. And David was riding right into the eye of it.