The morning felt different.
It wasn't in the sky—it still wore its usual dusty blue. Nor was it in the road—the same winding, puddled path that curled from Iyi's stall toward the broken compound walls of the neighborhood. It was in the way the wind moved. A breeze that didn't stir leaves, but memory.
It was the same breeze that had passed through once before—the day Iyi's final scam had gone wrong. The day his partner disappeared. The day he ran from shadows not made by sun.
Dust and ash.
That's what the wind smelled like.
He tried to ignore it. Mixed eucalyptus with charcoal powder, pressing it into balm. Ground bitter kola. Lit a soft fire in the corner and dropped a cowrie into water, watching it sink to the bottom of a shallow clay bowl.
But his spirit was restless.
The sponge had grown warmer since the beggar's return, as if awakened from sleep. And now, it twitched. Soft pulses, like a heart remembering it had once been alive.
"I hear you," Iyi whispered.
He didn't ask what was coming.
He already knew.
—
It started with the boy.
Late afternoon. Sun hanging low. Iyi was arranging the day's herbs into small paper packets when a young man in his early twenties approached—head shaved close, shoulders tense, carrying something under his arm.
He looked exactly like Iyi once did.
Too lean from hunger. Eyes darting too often. Breath too fast. A ghost of desperation clinging to him like sweat.
"You Ọmọ Iyi?" he asked.
Iyi nodded.
The boy unwrapped the bundle. Inside: a flash drive, a cheap phone, and a burner SIM card.
"I have a deal," the boy said. "Just like the old days. Untraceable email scam. Real clean. We target the West, they never see it coming. Split is 60/40—you bring the miracle touch. The name."
Iyi didn't speak.
"Look," the boy continued, "I know who you used to be. The guy who broke that rich woman's security vault. The one who faked a UN job and got paid twice. That was legendary."
Iyi's jaw tightened.
"That man died," he said quietly.
The boy smirked. "Did he? You're still making soap. Still feeding stories to villagers. Still surviving."
Iyi took a deep breath. Reached into his satchel and placed the sponge on the table—wrapped, but unmistakable.
It pulsed once.
The boy took a step back. "What is that?"
"Truth," Iyi said. "You're standing in front of it. And you have one chance to walk away."
The boy hesitated.
But only for a moment.
Then he laughed.
"I get it. You've moved on. Soap sells better than scams now. Fine."
He picked up his things, turned, and spat on the ground before walking off.
But as he crossed the road, a car swerved too close. He jumped back, slipping in mud. The phone tumbled from his grip and shattered.
The flash drive, too, cracked open.
Iyi watched from behind the stall.
Dust and ash again.
The moment came full circle—but this time, he wasn't in the car. He wasn't holding the lie. He wasn't the one running.
The sponge cooled.
—
That night, Lagos thundered.
Not with rain—but drums.
From nowhere, and everywhere, a low sound rippled through the street—an ancestral rhythm, old and slow, calling not for dance, but for reckoning.
Iyi sat alone by candlelight, the stall closed. The beggar's soap unwrapped, glowing faintly beside the sponge.
He placed both hands into the bowl of water, then lifted them to his chest.
"I have turned back from who I was," he whispered. "But I know the dust. I know the ash. I don't forget."
And then… a whisper.
Not from the sponge.
Not from the walls.
But from inside.
"What if you fall again?"
He didn't answer right away.
Instead, he picked up a lump of burnt charcoal from the fire pit.
Pressed it into his palm.
Let it mark him.
Then replied aloud, "Then let me fall with clarity. Not because I wanted wealth. But because I was still walking."
He let the charcoal fall back into the bowl.
And outside, the drums faded.
—
The next morning, a group of women arrived. Quiet. No makeup. No wrappers of color.
They sat beside his stall and said, "We heard you refused the city."
He nodded.
"We came because we, too, once took gold… and it turned to teeth in our mouths."
Iyi prepared a mixture of soap, balm, and prayer.
No flyers. No promises. No shortcuts.
Just healing.
One woman at a time.
And for the first time in a long time, he didn't feel alone.
Dust and ash had returned.
But this time… so had fire.
And Iyi was ready.