The First Call

The night air pressed cold against Brian's window, carrying the distant hum of Thika Road. Inside his bedsitter in Roysambu, he lay motionless, watching the water stain on the ceiling spread like a map of somewhere he would never go. His phone lay on the mattress beside him, silent for once. No calls from his mother asking about fees. No messages from the university reminding him of deadlines he was already failing to meet.

He had come to Nairobi with dreams. Now, in his second year, the dreams had shrunk to fit inside this single room with its cracked walls and shared bathroom down the hall. Three thousand shillings remained of his fees. His father had sent what he could after the harvest failed....