The Weight Of Gold

Iyi awoke to silence.

Not the silence of sleep, nor the hush of nightfall in Lagos. This was something older—an ancestral stillness that pressed against his chest and throat like the weight of a hand. He sat up slowly, blinking into a soft golden light that seemed to emanate from the air itself. There was no sun above, no shadows on the ground. Just light, and the scent of unfamiliar flowers and burnt charcoal.

He wasn't in the village anymore.

The place around him looked like a town carved out of forgotten time. Low huts with palm-thatch roofs dotted the landscape, their walls painted in white clay and ochre. A massive baobab stood at the center, its roots coiling like great snakes around the earth. Winding paths wove through the settlement like veins, leading to stalls draped in cloth and bone, feathers and shells. It was a market he could feel it in the bones of the place. But not a single item had a price tag. No shouting, no bargaining, no coins changing hands. Just... people. Or what looked like people.

They moved quietly, deliberately. Some carried baskets woven from smoke. Others stood still, faces turned toward the horizon as though listening to things only they could hear. All wore garments stitched from different eras—one in colonial robes, another in raffia skirts, another in Lagos-style denim and Ankara.

Yet no one looked at him.

No one spoke.

Iyi stood and walked forward, his bare feet brushing against soft earth etched with symbols. He tried to speak to ask where he was but the words withered in his throat. It wasn't fear that silenced him. It was knowing. Deep knowing. He wasn't meant to speak here. Not yet.

As he wandered between the stalls, he noticed what was for sale or rather, what was displayed.

In one basket: the sound of a mother's lullaby, suspended in a sphere of glass.

On another table: tears, perfectly preserved in tiny gourd flasks, labeled only with names like Akin, Morẹ́nikeji, Ade.

A woman sat by a pot that boiled but never steamed, offering no food but holding out her palm to passersby, her eyes blind but warm. When someone placed their hand in hers, she whispered things into their ear that made them fall to their knees in tears.

A man walked by with a cracked mirror strapped to his back. Every now and then, he stopped and let someone look into it but only for a moment. One woman screamed. A child smiled. A man collapsed.

Iyi stepped closer to one of the stalls, drawn to a soft blue cloth that pulsed faintly with light. He reached out curious, cautious.

Before he could touch it, an old woman beside the stall turned her head sharply.

Her face was like paper, every wrinkle a paragraph. Her eyes were milky, her mouth a thin line.

"You have not given," she said. Her voice was not unkind. It was law.

Iyi drew his hand back. Embarrassment rose like heat in his chest.

"What must I give?" he asked.

The woman tilted her head, listening to something beyond his words.

"You ask wrongly," she replied. "You do not give to get. You give to be."

And just like that, she vanished no fanfare, no flash. Gone like mist in morning sun.

Iyi looked down at his hands, suddenly aware of how empty they were. His satchel was gone. The sponge, gone. Even the garment he had worn woven of feathers and ash had transformed. Now he wore a plain white cloth around his waist, marked only by a single charcoal handprint over his heart.

The Market Without Money wasn't here to sell.

It was here to measure.

Measure what? he wondered.

He walked further, past a boy offering a gourd filled with laughter, past a vendor handing out songs that never ended. Everyone he passed ignored him, until he came upon a small stall with nothing on it.

Just a mat. Empty.

Behind it sat a young girl barely seven years old, her hair in tight coils, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her eyes, however, were not the eyes of a child.

They were old. Older than Lagos. Older than history.

When she saw Iyi, she smiled.

"You're not supposed to be here yet," she said.

Iyi blinked. "Why?"

"Because your hunger still stinks of the city," she said, nose wrinkling. "But that's okay. We've been expecting you anyway."

She reached into her mouth and pulled out a small pebble, placing it on the mat. It gleamed silver in the soft golden light.

"That's your first offering."

"I didn't give it," he said, confused.

"You did," she replied, pointing to the handprint on his chest. "You just didn't know you gave it."

Iyi stared at the pebble. It pulsed faintly just like the sponge had.

"What do I do now?" he asked.

The girl grinned wide, teeth slightly crooked.

"You walk the market. And you don't take anything. Not until the market offers it to you."

"And what happens if I do?"

Her smile disappeared.

"Then you owe the market," she said softly. "And the market always collects."

Iyi nodded slowly. He looked around—suddenly aware of how many people had stopped moving. Faces were turned toward him. Eyes, glowing faintly, watching.

Testing.

He backed away from the stall, heart pounding. The girl simply waved.

Walk the market, he reminded himself. Don't touch. Don't ask. Don't hunger.

But how could he not hunger?

The hunger was in his bones, in his name. The hunger had driven him from Lagos streets to shadowy alleyways, into rituals and rivers. The hunger had been all he'd ever known.

But the market wasn't a place that fed your hunger.

It revealed it.

He passed another stall this one displaying old photographs with burnt edges. A sign written in dripping ink read: Memories returned, but never the same. A man picked one up and stared at it until he wept blood.

Farther still, he saw a woman bartering with nothing but her breath. Every exhale, she became a little more transparent. By the time the vendor nodded, she was almost gone.

And then—Iyi stopped.

Ahead stood a stall with no vendor, no objects. Just a single mirror, cracked and framed with bones, resting atop a black cloth.

Drawn like a moth to flame, he approached.

His reflection shimmered.

It wasn't him.

It was a version of him dressed in designer clothes, seated behind a glass desk in a high-rise office. Money poured from a faucet behind him, gold bars stacked in the corner. And yet—his face was hollow. Eyes sunken. Mouth curled in a permanent sneer.

The mirror whispered.

"Take it."

Iyi's hand twitched.

He wanted to touch the glass. Wanted to break it. Or take what it promised.

But then the voice of the girl returned in his head.

"You owe the market. And the market always collects."

He backed away, trembling.

As he turned, a soft wind passed through the market.

The stalls rippled.

The people froze.

The baobab at the center groaned.

And from beneath its roots, a tall figure began to rise.

Wrapped in smoke and gold dust.

Eyes glowing like molten metal.

A voice like thunder cloaked in silk boomed:

"Iyi, son of hunger."

He fell to his knees.

The spirit stepped forward. Its face shimmered, ever-changing. One moment it looked like his father, the next like Agba Oye, the next like a version of himself he couldn't recognize.

"You have walked among us. But you are not yet one of us. The gift has been placed. The path is not chosen it is earned."

The baobab's roots twisted upward, forming an arch.

The spirit extended a hand.

"If you walk through, you leave your name behind. All names. Even the ones your hunger gave you."

Iyi's heart raced. He looked back toward the market, the girl, the mirror.

He looked at the pebble that was still glowing in his palm.

Then he looked ahead.

At the archway.

At the unknown.

And he walked.

One step.

Two.

Three.

Into the place where hunger could no longer follow.