HE SHOULD HAVE LEFT

The Compressor

Tuesdays weren’t supposed to go like this. They were supposed to drift by, lost between Monday’s ambition and Wednesday’s relief—a day safe from disaster. But the compressor picked a Tuesday to die.

Kel was in the middle of a job, sweat on his temples, one eye on the customer and the other on the pressure gauge. Then, just as the man’s impatience hit boiling point—the foot tapping, watch-checking, the whole performance—the machine gave a pitiful wheeze and quit. Burnt rubber and something more metallic—worry, probably—rose from its cracked shell.

“Chai,” Kel said under his breath. He knelt, his palm tracing the hot metal, as if maybe he could will it back. The customer, red-faced in a suit that had no business existing in Lagos heat, snorted like the compressor’s last gasp had offended him personally.

“How long?” the man demanded.

Kel didn’t look up. “Give me one hour. I’ll use the hand pump.”

That was optimistic, and Kel knew it. One hour slid into two. By the time the tire was done, the man had stormed off for good, underpaying and hissing into his phone about “unserious mechanics,” making sure Kel heard every word.

Kel let him go. The truth was, he’d stopped fighting these small humiliations a while back. He just sank onto his usual bucket, staring at the dead compressor, finally doing the math he’d dodged for weeks. Even a battered unit from Ladipo market would cost close to two hundred thousand naira. After today’s payouts—his apprentice's wage and the generator’s diesel—Kel was left with maybe sixty thousand. Half of that was already set aside for his mother’s medication.

He opened his banking app—refreshed it once, twice, a third time, as if maybe God was waiting to see how persistent he’d be before working a miracle. No luck. Sixty-three, four hundred.

The shop closed in around him, thick with afternoon heat and leftover rain, the kind that makes every thought heavy. He was still sitting there—bucket, broken compressor, the whole mess—when Chidi showed up.

“That bad?” Chidi asked. He already knew the answer. Everyone did.

“Two hundred thousand. At least,” Kel said, rubbing his eyes until what little hope he had blurred out. “I don’t have it, not unless I use the rent money. And if I do that, we’ll be out of this place by next month anyway. So what’s the point?”

Chidi crouched next to him, elbows on knees. When Chidi went quiet, it usually meant he was about to suggest something Kel didn’t want to hear.

“What about Amara? She’s doing well these days, isn’t she? All those big events…”

Kel stiffened. Not much, just enough for Chidi to catch it. “I don’t like asking her for money.”

“Why not? You two might as well be married. This is what people do for each other.”

“It’s not that simple,” Kel said, standing and brushing imaginary dust off his trousers just to do something with his hands. “Whenever I mention money, she changes. Just a little—a look in her eyes. Like she’s running numbers in her head.”

Chidi watched him fiddle with a wrench he didn’t need. “So, recalculating what?”

Kel shrugged. “Maybe I’m imagining it. She’s under a lot of pressure with work.”

“Maybe,” Chidi said, but his voice sounded doubtful. And he left it at that. Some days, you pick your battles.

Later that evening, Kel called his mother. He meant to check on her—her blood pressure medication, how well she was resting—but listening to her talk settled him in a way almost nothing else did. She asked after Amara right away: if the wedding date was set, whether he’d started saving, if her people had brought up the bride price yet.

“Things are tight, Mama,” he told her, careful words for a truth that hurt to say out loud. “The shop’s just… it’s going through something. It’ll pass.”

“Everything passes, my son,” she replied, using a tone that wrapped comfort and old ache together. “Your father used to say the same. Until one day, things didn’t pass—they just got heavier, until he didn’t see the point in waiting anymore.”

Kel stayed silent. He knew there was no safe way out of that conversation.

He didn’t tell Amara about the compressor that night when she finally made it home—tired, later than usual, carrying the scent of some unfamiliar restaurant. He told himself she had her own stress, that there was no use piling his mess on top of hers. But the truth was harder and smaller: some part of him just couldn’t stand to see the look he thought would flicker across her face when she realized how little he actually had left.