Member-only story
Delivered
The generator coughed off at 2:40, the way it does when the fuel man has cheated you again, and Awka went dark around me except for the laptop.
Eleven percent battery. Enough to watch the logs.
If you have ever built something alone, you know the logs are the only company you keep after midnight. Lines scroll. Each one is a small promise kept. Queued. Sent. Delivered. I built that mail server myself, every retry, every bounce. Nobody else had the keys. Nobody else was awake.
So when a new line appeared at 3:07, I assumed I'd fat-fingered a test.
From: night, at my own domain. An address I never created.
To: Mrs. Okafor, ground floor.
I knew Mrs. Okafor. She sold pure water from a cooler by the gate and called me "computer boy." She did not have email. She had a Nokia with a cracked screen and strong opinions about our landlord.
Delivered.
The body was one line. Your door is open.
I laughed, the thin laugh you do when you're alone. Then I got up, because I'm that kind of person, and I looked down the stairwell.
Her door was wide open. The cooler lay on its side. Burst sachets of water glittered on the concrete in my phone's torch, like teeth.
