That night, the city breathed like a restless beast. Lagos hummed beneath the low ceiling of clouds, its heartbeat drumming through the gutters, clubs, and alleyways. Yet for Iyi, inside his one-room apartment above a tailor's shop, silence settled like a second skin. The streets below were noisy, but his mind had gone still — disturbingly so.
The card from the man with gold-rimmed glasses sat in a wooden bowl beside a calabash of river-scented water. He hadn't touched it again, but he hadn't destroyed it either. It gleamed under the flickering bulb as if pulsing with life.
He sat on the floor, cross-legged, the scent of herbs clinging to his clothes, his thoughts tangled in contradictions.
What if I take the deal? What if I don't? Is healing still healing when sponsored?
The questions spiraled until fatigue pulled him under. Somewhere between awareness and surrender, sleep took him.
And the dream began.
He stood in an open market — but it was not the Lagos he knew. This place was scorched, the stalls half-burnt and smoldering. Ash floated in the air like snow. The colors of life were gone. The sky was the color of old charcoal.
In his hand, he held a coin.
It shimmered briefly — not silver, not gold, but something older. Its surface was engraved with a face, a screaming one, mouth open wide as if in agony.
He looked around. The market was silent, except for the faint clink… clink… clink of metal falling onto stone.
He followed the sound.
At the center of the market was a firepit. Blackened, ancient, smoking.
Beside it sat a woman with silver hair braided into loops, her body cloaked in ash-covered cloth. Her eyes were white — blind, yet somehow piercing.
"Throw it in," she said without turning.
Iyi looked down at the coin. The screaming face twisted on its surface, now weeping molten tears.
"It's just a coin," Iyi said. "What harm can it do?"
The woman smiled, but not kindly. "No coin is ever just a coin. What you hold is memory. Debt. Desire. The louder it burns, the harder it clings."
He hesitated. The coin grew hotter in his hand. The screaming intensified — not just a sound now, but a feeling, echoing inside his skull.
"I was promised it would buy healing," Iyi whispered.
"Gold speaks in lies," she replied. "But blood never forgets. Every burnt coin carries a voice. And every voice has a cost."
He stepped toward the fire. The heat rose in waves. His fingers trembled. Part of him wanted to keep the coin — sell it, hide it, turn it into something else.
But the other part — the part that remembered hunger, the river, the sponges, the silence — knew what had to be done.
He dropped the coin into the fire.
It didn't clink.
It screamed.
The flames rose, licking the sky. The ashes danced violently. The woman stood — no longer blind, her eyes glowing with fierce light.
"You burned one," she said. "But more remain."
He looked down. Dozens of coins now rested in his hands, some familiar, others foreign. Names and memories etched across each one: Kareem, the Blind Beggar, the Scammed Widow, his Mother, the Soap Woman, the Man in Gold Glasses.
Each coin burned with a different flame.
Iyi dropped to his knees, overwhelmed.
"How do I burn them all?" he asked.
"You don't," she replied. "You carry them carefully — until you learn which to offer, and which to bury."
Then the fire engulfed the sky.
He awoke with a start.
Sweat slicked his brow. The air felt heavy, thick with the scent of smoke — though no fire had been lit. He looked at the bowl. The card was still there.
But now, beside it, lay a single blackened coin.
Iyi picked it up. It was warm. Smooth. No face. No screaming.
Only silence.
He stared at it for a long time, his breath steadying. The dream hadn't been a warning. It had been a revelation.
The choice wasn't just about money or fame. It was about what he could carry without corruption. Which offerings must be burned. Which must be given voice.
Iyi stood, took the coin, and stepped outside into the early dawn. The sky was pale with morning.
He walked to the nearest shrine — an old, neglected stone embedded at the junction of three paths — and placed the coin on the offering plate.
"For those I've wronged," he whispered. "For what must be released."
Then he returned to his stall, the city still dreaming, and began his morning anew.
Not just as a healer.
But as a man learning, one coin at a time, how to walk the path of truth.