The suit wasn't new. It was one of the two he had rescued from the "bend-down" market, but under Papa Ikeji’s skilled needle, it had been transformed. The cheap fabric now held a sharp crease in the trousers, the jacket sat on his shoulders without a wrinkle, the collar of his simple white shirt was a crisp, clean line against his throat. Dressing that morning was not a routine; it was a ritual. Each buckle tightened was a lock clicking into place on the armor of his new-old self. He saw himself in the tiny, shattered mirror placed upon his crate. The figure in the glass was not the ghost that haunted these corridors, nor was it the demon-possessed ghost that fought goons in the alley. He was solid. Untroubled. The suit had not made the man, but it nicely delineated the man he was now.
Th
