We did not begin with light.

We began with weight.

The kind of weight that rests quietly on the chest in the early hours of morning, when the world has not yet decided whether it will be kind or cruel. In Aderin, mornings arrived without ceremony. The sun rose not to inspire, but to insist. To remind everyone that survival, once again, was required.

Ayo learned this early.

He woke before the roosters, before laughter found its way into the streets, before hope had time to dress itself properly. The room he slept in was small, its walls lined with cracks that looked like unfinished maps. Each crack told a story of years passing without repair, of storms endured rather than fixed. He lay still for a moment, listening to his own breathing—slow, careful—as if even air was something to be managed responsibly.

Across the room came the sound of his mother’s breath. Uneven. Familiar. Fragile.

That sound anchored him. As long as it existed, the world had not fully collapsed.

Outside, brooms scraped the ground. Women swept dust into smaller piles of dust, repeating a ritual older than memory. Radios murmured half-forgotten songs about patience, love, and waiting. In Aderin, waiting was not an act—it was a skill everyone mastered without choosing to.

Ayo rose, folded his blanket neatly, and washed his face with cold water. The shock sharpened his thoughts. His school uniform, once blue, now wore the color of time and scarcity, but it was clean. Clean meant dignity. Dignity mattered.

His mother sat on a low stool, stirring a thin pot of soup. Her hands moved slowly, deliberately, as though strength itself was something to be rationed.

“You’ll be late,” she said gently, without looking up.

“I know,” Ayo replied, tying his worn shoes.

She finally met his eyes. There was love there. And fear. And something heavier—an understanding that words could no longer protect him from.

Still, she spoke the sentence she always spoke.

“We may not have much,” she said softly, “but we have tomorrow.”

Ayo nodded. He always did. Not because he fully believed it, but because believing cost less than despair.

The road to school wound through narrow streets stitched together by red earth and memory. Shops opened reluctantly. Children laughed too loudly, pretending hunger did not exist. Old men sat beneath mango trees, guarding stories no one seemed eager to inherit.

At school, Ayo sat near the window, where sunlight softened the lessons. He listened differently than most. Words were not just information to him—they were exits. He held onto them carefully, hoping one might eventually lead somewhere else.

Teachers noticed his questions. Classmates noticed his silence. Some admired him. Others laughed. In a place like Aderin, ambition was suspicious. Wanting more made people uncomfortable.

Then the rain came.

It arrived on a day already heavy with unspoken things. Clouds gathered early, thick and low, pressing against the town like held breath. Ayo was halfway home when the first drops fell—large, deliberate, splashing against the dust like punctuation marks.

Soon, the sky broke open.

He ran, heart racing, books pressed to his chest, shoes sliding in the mud. By the time he reached home, soaked and breathless, he knew something was wrong before he stepped inside.

The air was too still.

His mother sat on the floor, not cooking, not humming—just sitting. Her eyes were fixed on something he could not see.

“Come,” she said quietly.

That moment did not announce itself loudly. It did not scream.

But it shifted everything.

Illness entered their lives like an uninvited guest who intended to stay. Days blurred into each other. Medicines came and went. Nights stretched long and suffocating. Ayo learned how fear could live silently in the corner of a room, watching. He learned how love could feel helpless.

Still, his mother smiled when she could. Still, she spoke of tomorrow.

Until one night, just before dawn, she stopped breathing.

There was no thunder. No dramatic farewell. Just silence.

Ayo held her hand long after it grew cold, long after the room emptied. Morning arrived anyway. It always did. The sun rose as if nothing sacred had been broken.

Grief did not explode. It settled. It became a permanent weight inside him, shaping his movements, dulling his voice. The house felt hollow. The air felt unfinished. Some nights, Ayo lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling, wondering if beginnings were traps—if some people were born only to endure.

Then Zainab arrived.

She came from elsewhere, and it showed. In her accent. In her confidence. In the way she spoke of the future as if it were not imaginary. She talked about universities, libraries, wide roads, and possibilities. She asked Ayo questions no one else had ever asked.

“What do you want to become?”

He hesitated. Then said quietly, “Better than this.”

She did not laugh.

They talked often after that—about books, about life, about leaving. With her, hope returned, not gently, but insistently. It did not comfort Ayo. It challenged him. It demanded something in return.

The night he decided to leave Aderin, he sat alone in the house where everything began. The walls watched him. The silence listened.

“I won’t waste this,” he whispered.

Years later, standing before people who carried the same quiet fear he once carried, Ayo spoke not of success, but of beginnings.

“I come from a place where hope had to fight to exist,” he said. “I come from dust, from waiting, from loss. And I carry that with me.”

He paused, letting the truth settle.

“Never be ashamed of where you began. Because where you began is not your limit. It is your proof.”

Somewhere beyond memory, beyond pain, tomorrow finally answered.

Written by

Solomon Oluwatimileyin David

Edited by

DATTLEECO