The afternoon was hot in Enugu, the kind that makes your shirt stick to your skin. Emeka walked out of the busy market holding a small black nylon. Inside was a secondhand phone.
It wasn’t what he dreamed of, but it was all he could afford. His old phone had stopped working weeks ago. Without one, he felt cut off from the world no jobs, no messages, not even his mother’s calls.
The street vendor had assured him, “Bros, this phone go serve you well.”
Emeka had only nodded, too tired to argue.
Immediately he got home, he turned the phone on. The phone screen was looking dull and not lighting enough but the phone was working fine.
Then he noticed something strange. The battery never went down. He used it all night torchlight, chatting, videos yet the charge remained at 100%.
At first, he laughed. It had to be a mistake. But as days passed, the battery still didn’t move. The phone never needed charging.
He was so happy that the battery don't easily shutdown, which means no need of going out to charge the phone in the charging centre. But he never expected things will turn out the way he never wish.
Odd messages started to appear. Not from any known number. Just blank senders.
“Don’t take the road tomorrow. Danger awaits.”
Emeka ignored it. But the next morning, he heard a tanker had fallen on that same road. People were hurt. His chest tightened.
That evening, another message came.
“Go to the junction by 3 p.m.”
He obeyed, half afraid, half curious. At exactly 3, a man dropped his wallet. Emeka took the wallet and returned it back. The owner gave him five thousand naira as an appreciation.
Emeka stood there, stunned. His phone wasn’t just unusual. It was… guiding him.
The days that followed proved it again and again. Warnings. Instructions. Every message changed something in his life. A small gig he wouldn’t have noticed. A betrayal he avoided. Bit by bit, his struggles eased.
But with every message, his fear grew. Who was sending them? A hacker? A spirit? Something else?
One night, a new text glowed on his screen.
“Don’t waste this gift. Use it for others.”
Emeka sat still, staring. Until then, he had only thought of himself. Probably this is the sign to do more.
The next day, he saw a little boy crying by the roadside. People walked past without stopping. The phone buzzed again.
“Help him.”
He knelt, spoke gently, and found the child was lost. With a few questions, Emeka helped him find his mother. She hugged her son, tears streaming. She thanked Emeka over and over.
That moment stayed with him. Helping someone gave him a joy money never did.
From then on, he followed the phone’s messages not only for himself, but for others. Sometimes it meant warning people. Sometimes it meant guiding them. Sometimes just listening. Soon, people in his neighborhood started calling him “the young man who sees tomorrow.”
But the phone’s gift came with weight.
One night, a message appeared:
“If you go out tonight, you will not return.”
His friends had invited him to a party. They laughed when he refused. By morning, he heard the news. Their bus went directly with a heavy duty vehicle. Two dead. The others badly injured.
Emeka couldn’t stop shaking. The phone was saving him, but it scared him too.
One evening, he decided he’d had enough. He held the phone by the window, ready to throw it away. Then a new message flashed:
“Throw me away, and you throw away your destiny.”
The word destiny struck him. Maybe the phone wasn’t a curse after all. Maybe it was his path.
Three years later, Emeka was a different man. He had used the phone’s guidance to grow. He started a small tech service. He helped people fix their systems, recover data, and even trained others.
His name spread far beyond his street. People didn’t know about the messages. They only saw a man who always knew the right steps, who turned warnings into wisdom and struggles into hope.
The phone never lost charge. It still sent messages only he could see. But now, Emeka no longer feared it. He accepted it.
ONE night he will sit outside holding the phone and he will whisper to it. "Thank you".
The phone never answered. It didn’t need to. Emeka understood. Some mysteries aren’t solved. They’re simply lived.