They left Rashid's apartment without another word, the door clicking shut behind them.Outside, Tete moved at its patient rhythm — motorbikes threading dusk, radios murmuring from open windows, the Zambezi breathing silver beyond the rooftops.Yet one word trailed each of them down the streets, quiet as a thought and just as hard to shake:
Arena.
Jabari
He walked fast, cutting through side streets he could trace blindfolded.Home felt too small when he reached it, every corner whispering memory.He straightened the stack of notes on his desk, aligned his keys in a perfect row, rewrote a message three times before sending it:
Tomorrow. Arena.
On the wall, six boys smiled from an old photograph — dust, sweat, victory.Enzo's grin caught the light.Jabari swallowed the laugh that rose with it.
"I just want to fix things," he told the empty room.Because saying it almost made it true.He hit send.
Kwame
The guitar lay across his lap, the fan rolling warm air in lazy circles.He played three notes, paused, repeated them — a melody that refused to end.Once, long ago, Enzo had clapped for that tune after everyone else had walked away.
The memory softened him.He smiled, set the guitar down, and typed:
Kwame: This time, we don't leave anyone behind.
His palm rested on the guitar's wood as if on a shoulder.
Tariq
The laptop's blue light hollowed his face.Deadline timer flashing red, fingers trembling, he nudged bullet points and margins that didn't matter.He was rearranging pixels just to stop himself shaking.
The dockworkers' voices echoed: Some guy at the Arena. Calls himself the Magician.Their laughter had been ordinary. That was what bothered him.Life went on. Even without them.
He stared at a paper ball by his foot — the one he used to juggle.Kicked it once, caught it mid-bounce, and whispered, "Always late."
Then he wrote before he could think:
Tariq: I'll be there.
The red timer pulsed. He closed the laptop and let darkness win.
Rashid
The canvas waited. Five boys ran across it; the sixth space gaped like an open wound.He held the brush above the gap but didn't touch.The absence was louder than any color.
His phone buzzed.
Jabari: Tomorrow. Arena.Kwame: This time, we don't leave anyone behind.Tariq: I'll be there.
He typed only two words:
Rashid: Fine.
He looked back at the blank space and, for the first time in months, felt his hand itch to paint.Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.
Malik
He eased his father into bed, adjusted the pillow, waited through the coughs that rattled the small house.The old Tete Secondary jersey hung on its nail—number 1, washed pale.Across the room sat the plastic chair where unpaid bills lay stacked in perfect alignment.
His phone lit the darkness.
Jabari: Tomorrow. Arena.Kwame: This time, we don't leave anyone behind.Tariq: I'll be there.Rashid: Fine.
Malik glanced from the glowing screen to his father's shallow breaths."Not today," he murmured to the jersey. "Maybe tomorrow."
He typed:
Malik: Don't expect miracles.
He kept the phone in his hand until sleep claimed the house.
The Plan
By noon the next day, the group chat had turned into a thread of logistics:
Jabari: Dusk is best. We go as spectators.Malik: We leave if it smells wrong. No arguments.Tariq: Back exit stays open behind vendor stalls.Kwame: Two by two. Meet at the chapa stop if split.Rashid: No names. No questions. Eyes open.
They never typed Enzo.The name would come later—or not at all.
When dusk bled over the Zambezi, five men moved toward the part of the city where the ground no longer belonged to them.If the past dared to stand up tonight, they would stand too.