Chapter 1 — "A Thousand Pounds Was Once a Wedding"
– The Widow
The heat clung to her like shame. Not just the sweat-slick, midday burn of the sun. This heat came from inside—the kind that made your breath taste metallic, like old coins or burnt prayers.
Ayo stood outside St. Elizabeth's School for Girls, clutching the last thing her husband ever won.
The medal was gold-plated bronze. It bore the silhouette of a sprinter mid-leap, his knees frozen forever above the ground. The year had been etched clean by the wind, worn by time and the pressure of her palm. She hadn't let it go in eight years.
Now, she offered it to the bursar like it was still worth something.
"Gold?" The woman raised a penciled eyebrow. "We only take dollars, Missus."
Ayo blinked. "It's real gold. Olympic."
"No one cares about sports here," the bursar said, twisting the medal in her fingers like a toy. "And no one pays tuition with history. You want your daughter to stay enrolled? Bring cash. American."
The medal clinked back onto the desk like something useless.
—
That night, Ayo found herself at the roadside black market behind the petrol station. A man sat beneath a plastic umbrella, flanked by half-dead chickens and SIM cards. He wore gloves, despite the heat.
"You're early," he said, not looking up.
"I was told you trade in... alternatives."
"I trade in futures," he replied. "You need to pay something real?"
"I need dollars."
He smiled. Not kindly.
"Everyone does."
She unwrapped the cloth bundle and showed him the medal. The man's gloves paused mid-air.
"Olympic?"
"My husband ran for this country."
"Shame he didn't run away from it," the man muttered, then leaned in. "Real gold?"
She didn't know. It had felt heavy for years. That should count for something.
He weighed it in his palm, then looked up.
"Two hundred."
Ayo's throat closed. "That won't even cover the first term."
"Then don't have children you can't afford to educate."
He dropped the medal into his lap and tossed her two $100 bills, folded like lies.
"Next time," he said, "bring something rarer."
—
On her way home, she passed a boy playing with blocks made from SSP notes. Thousands of them—torn, taped, stacked into miniature towers.
One thousand pounds was once a wedding.
Now it was a toy. A joke. A stain.
—
Her daughter was waiting with a textbook on her knees. Its spine was split, and three pages had been torn out. Ayo didn't ask why.
She already knew.
They were smoking paper again—rolling desperation in lessons no one would learn.
"I got two hundred," Ayo whispered, sitting beside her.
Her daughter didn't look up. She was tracing the shape of the alphabet with her finger on the dirt floor.
"Will it be enough?"
Ayo didn't answer.
---
Scene Break: State Radio Clip
"Breaking: The Central Bank reports SSP gains against the dollar! Stability is back! A new oil discovery announced by Minister Deng—valued at 2.3 billion USD. Peace, Prosperity, Progress!"
(Cut to: market woman bartering tomatoes for soap. Voiceover fades into silence.)
---
That night, Ayo had a dream.
In it, the medal melted—not into liquid gold, but into pages from her daughter's textbook. The letters turned black. They fluttered upward like ash.
When she woke, the air smelled of ink and smoke.
And something was missing.
The $200 had vanished