Mornings were not gentle in Anselm's apartment.
The place was more cave than home—a one-bedroom labyrinth cluttered with tall, leaning towers of books that looked like they might come alive and consume him in his sleep. Half-read novels teetered atop textbooks on evolutionary biology, post-structuralist theory, obscure works of ancient mathematics. Papers—some graded, some not—were pinned to the walls like insect specimens. On the floor: coffee-stained mugs, errant notebooks with wild diagrams and scribbled thoughts like "Is morality just organized fear?" and "Time = Memory + Narrative?"
And yet, despite the chaos, the disorder had an unmistakable rhythm to it. There was an invisible grid in which everything lived—a crooked symmetry only Anselm could see. Every item in the room was both misplaced and exactly where it needed to be. This, too, was a metaphor for how he lived: a philosophy of curated entropy.
The air was stale but full of intent, like it had spent the night thinking.
He sat on the edge of his mattress—not a bed, not truly, just a foam slab. He rubbed his temples, eyes still adjusting to the uneven light filtering in through crooked blinds.
He was light-skinned with an earthy brown undertone, like coffee diluted with cream. His hair was a dark, uncombed mess of loose, dry curls that stood at odds with the sharpness of his thoughts—but paradoxically suited him. If he ever tried to tame it, the result was disastrous.
His glasses were black with a brown fade at the temples—thick, rectangular, and just crooked enough to imply they were loved, not broken. They framed his eyes perfectly: soft brown, but alert.
A sigh left his lips, slow and deliberate.
He moved through his morning like a man who didn't need light to see. Water for the kettle. A single cracked mug. The dull hum of a fridge that contained nothing.
In the bathroom, he stared at himself in the mirror, toothbrush in hand, foam building around a slight smirk.
He didn't dress with intention so much as defaulted into clothes: black slacks with frayed cuffs, a navy button-up still creased from where it had been crumpled on the floor.
On his way out, he locked the door, paused, unlocked it, checked the stove, locked it again.
The door to Anselm's apartment creaked with its usual protest, revealing a man stepping out of chaos into calm.
Outside, the world shifted.
The compound stood in quiet contrast to the storm of clutter he lived in. The morning light poured gently over the lawns, trimmed to a clean hush, softening the cement paths that snaked around lush gardens and flowerbeds, most of them lovingly overgrown. Large trees stood like gentle sentinels on either side of the walk, their violet petals beginning to scatter across the path like a soft rain of forgotten thoughts.
The houses were all different enough to feel human, yet similar enough to feel safe—each painted in calming earth tones with wide porches, shuttered windows, and potted plants that told of a family inside. It was the kind of place that looked like it had no secrets. That was, of course, a lie.
Anselm walked with his bag slung loosely over one shoulder, shoes crunching gently against the grit lining the sidewalk. He pulled his headset from his coat pocket, untangling the wires absentmindedly as he passed under the dappled shadow of a tree. The leaves above rustled with the same rhythm as his thoughts.
He slipped the earbuds in. A calm, velvety voice met his ears.
> "The City Within the City: An Audible Reflection," the narrator began.
"It is a curious phenomenon, the presence of two cities occupying the same space, but only one being seen. The other—quiet, cracked, hidden in the corners—is not only unseen, but unacknowledged."
Anselm's pace slowed slightly, almost unconsciously.
> "Those who reside in the visible city are taught not to look beyond its shape, not to hear the language of the city beneath. To acknowledge it is to disturb something—both in the world, and within oneself. We are taught, over time, to ignore the flicker at the edge of the mirror. To pretend the face beneath the face isn't staring back."
The narrator's tone remained calm, almost lulling.
> "But cities are like people. There are masks. And beneath those masks, there are organs. And beneath the organs, there are places even the mind avoids—a decayed district of the self. And once seen, it cannot be unseen. Once heard, it becomes a sound you recognize in silence."
He kept walking.
***
The security guard at the compound gate gave him a lazy salute. Anselm responded with a slight nod. He didn't speak. Not because he didn't want to—but because whatever the voice in his ears was saying, it had wrapped around him like fog.
> "To reside in a city without knowing its hidden counterpart is like walking a maze whose walls you've memorized—but never asking who built it, or why you keep walking."
***
In no time he had reached the entrance of the University of Zambia—its familiar sprawl like a memory half-recalled.
The campus was alive with movement: students and lecturers in half-hurried steps, security officers sipping tea in shade. A group of girls passed laughing, one of them walking backwards mid-conversation. A campus preacher stood by a tree, sweating with conviction.
Anselm moved through it all like he was walking through his own dream.
The School of Humanities and Social Sciences sat off to the left, aged and tired from the outside. The concrete was cracked in long places, paint peeled around the windows like sunburned skin. The sign creaked slightly on its bolts. Stray vines crawled up the corners.
He entered.
And the inside was a completely different world.
Cool air washed over him as he stepped onto freshly polished floors that reflected the light like still water. The hallway was long and lined with glass-framed achievements: newspaper clippings from 1980, smiling faces from graduation classes long past, awards under gold-lettered names. There were faces in the photos that seemed to watch as he passed. Silent company. Silent expectations.
He kept walking until he reached a door with a small golden label:
Philosophy Department – Room 108.
He entered. The room smelled of old wood, lemon-scented cleaner, and a faint trail of burnt incense someone had probably used illegally weeks ago.
He dropped his bag onto the desk with a soft thump, then placed his phone down beside it. The screen lit briefly, displaying the paused audiobook title before fading into black.
He exhaled, long and steady.
Then—
"Morning, Anselm!"
The door swung open.
In bounced Tapiwa, a whirlwind in human form, balancing a paper tray with a steaming cup of tea and two freshly wrapped scones. She had cheeks round like marshmallows and a wide, gleaming smile that reminded him of something animated and impossibly sincere. There was something distinctly chipmunk-like about her face—not in a way that could be mocked, but in a way that made you instinctively want to give her sunflower seeds and secrets.
She placed the tea beside him with a flourish. "Don't say I never spoil you. I risked my life for this."
Anselm blinked slowly. "You always risk your life for baked goods. You just don't usually share."
She grinned and handed him one of the scones wrapped in a napkin like a small sacred offering.
"Only because you look like you've been walking through existential fog again," she said, sitting on the edge of his desk like she lived there.
Tapiwa took a loud sip of tea. "You know," she began, brushing a crumb off her lap with exaggerated flair, "if procrastination were a sport, you'd have at least two gold medals and a documentary made about your process."
Anselm raised an eyebrow without looking up from his scone. "Oh, please. I'd teach the masterclass. 'The Art of Doing Absolutely Nothing: A Guided Journey.'"
She snorted. "With bonus modules in 'Pretending to Be Busy While Actually Spiraling' and 'How to Look Smart by Frowning at Your Laptop.'"
"Don't forget the practical workshop," he added. "'Crying in the Bathroom for No Reason But Making It Philosophical.'"
Tapiwa laughed—sharp and warm. "I'd enroll just for the merch."
They sat in the comfortable tension of mockery. That was their rhythm. The constant push and pull between her grounded bluntness and his sarcastic airiness. Anselm often joked that she was the lightning bolt to his radio tower—occasionally striking him, but always waking him up.
Tapiwa leaned closer, her elbows on her knees now, her tea forgotten.
"But seriously," she said, her tone softening just a little, "how's it really going? The assistantship? Your master's program? I mean, other than being a living meme."
Anselm leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling as if the answers might be scribbled there in chalk.
"It's… going," he said eventually. "The assistantship's a maze of printing, pretending to care about people's opinions on Plato, and occasionally nodding seriously when the professor makes weird analogies."
Tapiwa chuckled.
"And the thesis?" she asked.
He paused. Just for a second too long.
"Coming along at the pace of continental drift," he muttered. "Except less elegant."
Tapiwa tilted her head. "What's it about again?"
Anselm took a breath. "Something about individualism in postmodern societies. Or maybe the illusion of identity in knowledge systems. I keep changing the title to make it sound more meaningful than it is."
Tapiwa watched him, her eyes sharp but kind. "You ever feel like you're building a house out of ideas and forgetting to put yourself in it?"
Anselm smiled faintly. "Every day. But hey, at least my house has good metaphors."
She rolled her eyes. "Metaphors don't keep the rain out."
He didn't reply.
Instead, his eyes wandered to the window, where the trees outside swayed like thoughts he couldn't quite catch.
"Hey," Tapiwa said gently, breaking the silence like a window crack that saves you from suffocating. "You're doing better than you think. You're just too smart to believe it."
Anselm blinked. "Did you just compliment me? I didn't know we were doing that today."
"It's a one-time offer," she said, sipping her tea. "Expires in five minutes."
Just then, the door swung open with a soft click.
Professor Malama entered, carrying a pile of papers that looked like they might collapse at any moment. He wore a sweater vest that had clearly survived at least one revolution, and his glasses rested halfway down his nose like they, too, were tired of academia.
He glanced up at the two of them.
"Oh. It's the half-dead intern and the chattering squirrel."
"Chickmunk," Tapiwa said with a small wave. "At least insult me accurately, sir."
The professor gave her a look that may have been disapproval or may have just been his resting face.
"Anselm," he said, ignoring her, "did you finish compiling the references for the comparative ethics module?"
"Yes," Anselm replied, quickly sitting straighter. "I also reformatted the citation index and labeled the folder chronologically."
The professor gave him a long stare. "Good. That's marginally useful. I'll pretend to be proud."
He turned and walked off into his office without another word.
Tapiwa leaned toward Anselm and whispered, "I think he secretly likes you."
"Oh, definitely," Anselm replied, deadpan. "We exchange emotional sonnets after hours."
Tapiwa giggled, her eyes crinkling.
And for a moment, the room felt full. Of warmth. Of gentle banter. Of something quietly alive.
But beneath it all—deep inside Anselm's chest—a tiny voice was still whispering.
> There is a city inside you. And there are streets you refuse to walk.
He reached for his phone again. The audiobook still sat paused on the screen.
"To acknowledge the unseen city… is to risk remembering the part of yourself that lives in the dark."
He turned off the screen, then looked back at Tapiwa.
She smiled at him again.
Anselm smiled back.