The rope shimmered faintly in my hand—thin as fishing line, translucent like heat waves on tarmac. I twisted it between my fingers, shaping loops and knots in the air, a lazy grin on my face as I tried making a cat's cradle
It was warm. Too warm. Nairobi never decided what kind of heat it wanted—sunshine heat or sweat-under-your-balls matatu heat. Today, it chose both thankfully my fan hummed faintly in the corner offering some relief
The rope flexed as I tugged it taut between thumb and forefinger. It didn't stretch. Didn't fray. It just existed, suspended between neurons and nerve endings, holding a tension that had nothing to do with mass.It wasn't hot or cold felt strange like holding something that had no real substance that didn't exist but was still there
I blinked once. Lost focus. The rope snapped out of existence like it had never been there.
Footsteps followed ..
A man shuffled into my shop wearing a cheap Arsenal jersey, cracked sunglasses, and an aura of impatience so loud it beat the hum of the flickering fluorescent light.
"Eh, boss," he said, waving a battered Infinix phone in my direction. "Hii simu yangu imekufa kabisa."
My rope trick was forgotten. I slipped my hands under the counter, wiped my palms against my jeans. They were warm. Damp. Maybe from the focus, maybe from the nerves. Hard to tell.
I gave the man my most neutral customer-service smile it was always good to be polite to potential customers.
"Ata haicharge. Nimejaribu kila kitu. Charger, socket, prayer—hakuna."
I reached out for the phone. He hesitated for a second, as if I might switch it with another one, then handed it over like it owed him money.
The screen was spiderwebbed to hell. USB port mangled. Something inside rattled.
"Two thousand," I said.
He scoffed like I'd insulted his bloodline.
"Aii, msee! This is not an iPhone!"
"No," I said, "it's a cheap plastic slab full of regret. And it needs a new port and screen. You want miracles or repairs?"
He frowned, crossed his arms. "One thousand five."
I stared at him flatly. "Two thousand. Cash. I don't do exposure."
He pulled out crumpled notes with a grunt and tossed them onto the counter. I counted them slowly. Deliberately.
He watched me like he expected me to summon satan and fix the phone with my blood.
If only he knew.
---
I placed the phone on the workstation behind me, beside a soldering iron, a pile of disassembled chargers, and a notebook filled with sketches—some for wiring, most for things no one would understand. Constructs. Ideas. Things I'd made with my mind, briefly, and wanted to make again. Better. Sharper.
I didn't fix the phone right away. Let the bastard sweat.
Instead, I picked up a half-dead playstation controller someone brought in last week, sat down, and flicked it open with a click. One of the screws had been stripped. Normally, I'd drill it out or find a workaround. Today, I just held the console gently in both hands, closed my eyes, and reached in.
The construct took shape in my mind before it did in the world. A slim, precise tendril—like a screwdriver with a ghost's touch—slid into existence beneath my fingernail. It wormed into the screw, twisted once, twice, and it came loose with a soft *tick*.
God, I loved this part.
I dismantled the rest by hand. The thrill wasn't the power—it was the precision. No guesswork. No force. Just control.
"Benjamin!"
The voice cracked through the haze like a slap.
I looked up. Jane or as I sometimes called her mrembo , the kiosk girl from next door, stood at the glass with a soda bottle in hand.
"Umefungua ama bado unacheza na mashine zako?"
I raised an eyebrow. "I'm always open. You're just slow."
She grinned, rolled her eyes, and disappeared back into the street.
I watched her go. She was pretty, too smart for her job. Probably had a degree in something useless like philosophy. I'd considered flirting once. Decided against it. I liked my privacy more than I liked thighs.
The man in the Arsenal shirt was still pacing outside like I owed him time itself. I thought he had left ,I sighed and went back to the Infinix.
I didn't use my powers for this one. Not worth the strain. Instead, I pulled out my tools, soldered in a new port, swapped the screen from a donor unit, and booted the thing up. It hummed to life, bright and dumb like a cockroach in the dark.
He snatched it out of my hands like I might change my mind and ran his thumb across the screen. Everything worked.
"See? Magic," I said.
He frowned, clearly disappointed he couldn't complain.
"Good work," he muttered.
"Tell your friends," I replied, already turning away.
---
The rest of the morning crawled by.
One lady dropped off a Bluetooth speaker with a cracked board. Some high school kid brought in a microwave that smelled like burned socks. I didn't ask. Nairobi was full of strange gods, and some of them lived in household appliances.
Around noon, I closed for lunch and took a walk. The sun punched down on my neck like it had beef with me.
I passed a boda boda stage where two guys argued about football. One of them was lying through his teeth about being related to Victor Wanyama. I sent out a flicker of a construct—just a thin wisp—and nudged a stone under his foot. He stumbled mid-sentence. Everyone laughed.
I smiled and walked on.
Not everything needed a reason. Some things were just... entertaining.
---
When I got back to the shop, I found someone had slipped a flyer under the door. Big blocky font. Purple ink. Some new pastor inviting people to a healing crusade in Kasarani.
"Come receive your breakthrough," it said. "Special prayers for job seekers, sick people, and the unmarried."
I tossed it into the bin and wondered—not for the first time—if maybe I could start a church. If I ever wanted to be rich, that'd be the way. Get a robe, a name like Prophet Benja, and just... manifest miracles.
Couldn't be worse than half the clowns already doing it.It was appealing
But no. That wasn't the plan.
Not yet anyway.
---
I got back behind the counter, kicked my chair, and settled in again. The hum of traffic seeped through the walls—matatus honking like they were allergic to silence, someone yelling at a boda boda rider, tires skidding on gravel. The city sounded like chaos with cacophony of noises everywhere . I liked it.
It made my mind feel quieter in comparison more still and I could just listen to the sounds
I reached into the drawer beneath the desk and pulled out a small black notebook. Inside: sketches, notes, equations—half of it nonsense to anyone else, but to me, it was structure. Discipline. It helped me see the limits of what I could do. Which, admittedly, wasn't much.
My constructs weren't stable past five meters. Couldn't last longer than a minute without constant focus. Couldn't lift anything heavier than a suitcase. I'd tried.
Once, I tried building a floating chair to test levitation. It collapsed halfway through and I fell on my ass. Still had a bruise.
The truth was... I was weak. *Limited*. No godhood. No flying. No movie magic. Just invisible tendrils and mental tools, like having extra hands only I could see.
Still, they were mine. That mattered more.
I stared at the page with last night's sketch. A kind of psychic spring-loaded needle I wanted to build. The mechanics were easy. The control wasn't. Every time I tried to compress energy, the construct either shattered or vanished. Containment was a bitch.
I tapped my pen against the counter.
The door chimed again.
This time, two guys stepped in—young, probably universitt students. The one in front wore a tight white t-shirt and jeans . The other had a Bluetooth speaker on his shoulder and a look on his face like he'd seen God and it was disappointing.
"Boss," the first one said, "unaweza check hii speaker? Charging Iko na shida"
I took it from him. It was one of those cheap Chinese models. Shiny and loud. Probably cost more than it was worth but we're easy to find and replace
"It charges sometimes," the second guy offered, "but then ina-blink na inatoa spark kidogo."
"Spark?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "From inside?"
He nodded.
I popped the cover open with a screwdriver. The battery was swollen like it'd been chewing steroids. A few wires looked like they'd been kissed by a small fire.
"This is fucked," I said. "Like, properly. You plug this in, it could explode."
"Eh? Serious?" they both said, suddenly looking like schoolboys caught cheating.
"Serious. You want me to fix it, or you want a new Bluetooth one?"
They laughed. Nervous. Left it with me and said they'd check later.
I placed the speaker on the side table and leaned back.
My phone buzzed. I pulled it out.
_____
It was late afternoon when the power cut.
Not unusual. Nairobi's grid was as unreliable as politicians. Everything died—fans, lights, soldering iron. The silence was weird. Oppressive.
I didn't panic. I had a solar battery setup. I flipped the switch behind the counter, and the backup light kicked in. Dim yellow, but enough.
I was working on a cracked tablet when the *bzzzt* sound came.
I looked up. The speaker from earlier—still on the side table—was smoking.
Then it popped.
Small, but sharp. A spark leapt into the air and something hit my cheek—hot plastic. It stung.
"Shit," I muttered, stumbling back.
My shoulder knocked the stool. It clattered to the floor.
Pain. Not deep, but sharp. I touched my face—there was a red mark where the plastic hit.
The construct in my mind flared, wild and out of shape. I tried to form a shield instinctively, but it sputtered, warped like a bad dream and collapsed. My breath caught.
"Shit," I said again.
I wasn't in danger. Not really. But the flashback from earlier—bleeding after falling during levitation tests—flared in my chest. That small moment of panic. Of powerlessness.
It was nothing.
But it made me wish I had real power not this pathetic excuse for a green lantern power up
---
I closed the shop early.
Locked the door. Packed up the notebook, the sketches. Hid them under a drawer panel. Changed into a jacket to hide the red mark on my cheek.
Outside, the sun was starting to sink. Orange glow on cracked pavement.
I walked past the kiosk.
Mrembo raised an eyebrow. "Leo umechoka mapema?"
"Speaker ilijaribu kuniua," I said.
She laughed. "Uko na drama. Kula chakula kwanza, utapona."
I grinned and kept walking.
Half a block later, I took a right, into a narrow alley I used as a shortcut when I was too impatient for traffic.