No one on Oremeji Street looked up. A few children groaned but then returned to their game. A generator coughed to life farther down the road, only to sputter into silence. The darkness felt as familiar as the cracked gutters and the dusty road. Eniayo’s mother slid open the wooden doors of her stall and struck a match. The flame caught the wick of a kerosene lantern, its sharp smell drifting into the evening air. Before long, the first customers arrived, some with rechargeable batteries and others with lanterns that had gone dark hours earlier. They greeted Eniayo’s mother, exchanged a few words about the blackout, and waited their turn. Eniayo sat on a plastic chair with a dog-eared exercise book, writing down names, borrowed batteries, and return dates. She enjoyed watching people almost as much as writing their names. You could tell a lot about a person by how they carried a lantern—some did so close and guarded, while others swung it lightly, already thinking of home. When the crowd thinned, Eniayo stepped outside and noticed Maryam beneath the old mango tree, a notebook on her knees and a small torch wedged between her cheek and shoulder. Every few minutes, the light dimmed. Maryam tapped it against her palm, waited for it to brighten, and then rushed to finish another line before it faded again. Her mathematics textbook lay open beside her, pinned down by a smooth stone. “You haven’t gone inside?” Eniayo asked. Maryam smiled. “Our exam starts tomorrow. My younger ones are sleeping. If I switch on the torch, they’ll wake up.” The beam shrank to a thin yellow line, and Maryam pulled it closer. Her shadow swallowed half the page. Without saying a word, Eniayo walked back to the stall, lifted a rechargeable lantern, and set it beside Maryam’s books. “What if your mama asks?” Eniayo shrugged. “I’ll tell her where it is.” The lantern bathed the page in soft white light, and Maryam continued to read, no longer needing to coax the torch back to life. Her pen moved steadily across the paper. Later, Eniayo’s mother counted the lanterns before closing the stall. Her hand paused at the empty hook. Across the road, Maryam still sat beneath the mango tree, turning pages under the lantern’s steady glow, her mathematics textbook open on her knees. Without a word, Eniayo’s mother closed the wooden doors, slipped the padlock into place, and walked home beside her daughter.
