It started with a flyer.
Saturday morning. Stan was at the tap washing his face when Kalu from Room 210 shoved a printed paper in front of him.
"Bash tonight. Faculty compound. DJ, drinks, everything. You coming?"
Stan read the flyer. He dried his face slowly.
"Is there a guest list?" Stan asked.
Kalu laughed. "This is university, Stan. The guest list is: anyone with two legs and 500 Naira."
Stan handed the flyer back. "Then yes. I will attend."
He walked back to his room. He already had plans forming.
Amaka liked music. He would tell Amaka.
Simi liked adventure. He would tell Simi.
Jessica liked content. A party was content. She would find out herself.
These were three separate invitations to three separate experiences. Stan was simply a man with a rich social life.
"Tobi," Stan said, entering the room.
"What," Tobi was ironing his one good shirt.
"There is a party tonight."
"I know. I saw the flyer."
"I need you to come."
Tobi looked up. "Why? You don't need me at parties. You have never needed me at a party."
Stan sat on his bed. He folded his hands. "This time is different."
Tobi put down the iron slowly. He had seen that look on Stan's face before. It was the look that always ended with Tobi doing something embarrassing.
"How many?" Tobi asked.
"How many what?"
"Girls. How many girls are you bringing to the same party?"
Stan said nothing.
"Stan. How many."
"The number is not important."
"It is very important."
"Tobi"
"Tell me the number and I will consider helping you."
Stan looked at the ceiling. "Three."
Tobi unplugged the iron. He sat down on the chair. He placed his hands on his knees like an elder about to deliver a proverb.
"Three," Tobi repeated.
"They move in different circles. They will not meet."
"They are all on the same campus, Stan. The campus is the size of four football fields."
"I have a system."
"What system?"
"Rotation," Stan said. "I give each one thirty minutes. Different corners. Different conversations. In and out. Clean. No contact."
Tobi stared at him.
"I need you to cover Corner B," Stan said.
"What is Corner B?"
"Wherever Simi is standing when I am with Amaka."
"You want me to babysit a girl I don't know so you can talk to a different girl."
"I want you to be a friendly presence."
"And if all three of them end up in the same place at the same time?"
Stan stood up. He picked up his cologne. He sprayed twice. Left side, right side. Controlled.
"That," Stan said, "will not happen."
It happened.
The party was in the Faculty compound courtyard. Someone had hung colored lights between the trees. A generator was running in the corner, making the usual kpa-kpa-kpa sound. The DJ was playing music so loud the ground was vibrating.
Stan arrived at 8:45 PM. He was wearing a white shirt with two buttons open at the top. Dark trousers. His black shoes were clean. He had used Kiwi polish and a newspaper. He looked like a man who owned things.
He did a quick survey of the compound.
Left side: food table. Jollof rice smell in the air.
Right side: drink table. Plastic cups, big bottles of malta and one suspicious cooler.
Center: people dancing.
Back corner: small clusters of people talking.
Stan's phone buzzed.
Amaka: I'm here. Where are you? 🙋🏾♀️
Stan typed back immediately: By the trees on the left. Come.
He started walking left.
His phone buzzed again.
Simi: Stan! I came! Are you here? This party is buzzing!! 🔥
Stan stopped walking.
He typed: Right side. Near the drinks. I'm coming.
He changed direction. Toward the right.
His phone buzzed a third time.
A notification. Not a text. Instagram.
@JessicaCreates has tagged you in a Story.
Stan opened it.
It was a video. Jessica was filming the party from the entrance. She was doing a slow pan across the crowd. At the end of the video, she pointed the camera at him in the distance and wrote in big white letters:
Spotted my FAVORITE person 🙈🙈🙈
Five hundred people had already viewed it.
Stan lowered his phone.
He stood in the exact center of the compound. Left was Amaka. Right was Simi. The entrance, behind him, was Jessica with a camera.
He was a man standing in the middle of three separate storms.
Tobi appeared beside him from nowhere. He was holding a cup of malta.
"I saw the Instagram story," Tobi said.
"I know."
"Jessica is at the entrance."
"I know."
"Amaka just waved at me from the left. She's looking for you."
"I know."
"Simi is at the drink table. She is wearing a yellow dress. She looks very nice. I feel bad about what is happening to her."
"Tobi"
"Your rotation system," Tobi said, sipping his malta, "is already dead. It died before it was even born. It was a stillbirth, Stan. Your system was born dead."
Stan breathed. One breath. Clean and deep.
His brain engaged. The gears shifted. The Override began.
He turned to Tobi.
"I need five minutes," Stan said.
"For what."
"To think."
"You have maybe ninety seconds before one of them finds you."
"Seventy seconds is enough."
Here is what normal men do when three worlds collide at one party:
They hide in the bathroom. They pretend to receive an urgent phone call. They invent a stomach ache. They send a long apology text and go home. They transfer to another school.
Here is what Stan did:
He thought for sixty-three seconds.
He identified the problem. The problem was that the three girls did not know each other. And if they met and talked, they would quickly discover they all knew the same man who had a different personality for each of them.
That was the threat.
The solution was to remove the threat.
If they already knew about each other, they could not discover each other.
Stan walked toward the entrance.
Toward Jessica.
Tobi grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?"
"To begin," Stan said.
Tobi released him. "I am going to need a stronger drink."
Jessica was at the entrance, filming the party. She was wearing a short red top and had her ring light in her bag, ready to come out. She was very pretty and very aware of it.
She saw Stan walking toward her and immediately started filming.
"He walked up to me," she whispered dramatically to her camera. "At a party. Like a whole movie. Chat, you see why I talk about this man."
Stan reached her. He took the camera gently from her hand. He turned it away.
"Not tonight," he said.
Jessica looked surprised. "Why?"
"Because tonight," Stan said, "I want to show you something real. And cameras make things fake."
Jessica immediately found this the most romantic thing she had ever heard. She put the phone in her bag.
"Stan. You are insane."
"Come," he said.
He walked her toward the left side of the compound. Toward Amaka.
Jessica walked beside him, looking around the party happily.
Stan spotted Amaka standing by the trees. Amaka was wearing a green top. She saw Stan and her face opened up into a smile.
Then she saw the girl beside him.
The smile stayed, but her eyes asked a question.
Stan walked up to Amaka. Calm. No hesitation.
"Amaka," Stan said. "This is Jessica."
Jessica waved. "Hi!"
Amaka looked at Jessica. She looked at Stan. "Hi. How do you two know each other?"
This was the moment. This was the razor's edge.
Stan did not blink.
"Jessica is my cousin's therapist," Stan said.
Jessica's eyes widened with sudden emotion. "Oh, she told you about me?"
"She mentioned you once," Stan said. "She said you have very calm energy."
"Oh my God," Jessica pressed her hand to her chest. "I think about her all the time. How is she doing? Has she" she lowered her voice, reverent "has she smelled anything new?"
Stan nodded slowly. "She smelled rain yesterday. For the first time."
Jessica grabbed Amaka's arm. "His cousin is going through the most incredible healing journey. She lost her sense of smell years ago and she is slowly recovering. Can you imagine? She smelled rain!"
Amaka looked at Stan with wide, overwhelmed eyes. "Stan. You never told me about this."
"He doesn't like to talk about family pain," Jessica told Amaka confidentially. "That is the thing about him. He carries everything quietly."
Amaka nodded. She had said those exact same words about Stan to her roommate just yesterday. This girl understood him too.
"He is special," Amaka agreed.
"He really is," Jessica said.
The two girls looked at Stan together.
Stan looked at the sky briefly. Just for one second. Like a man checking if God was watching.
God was watching.
God was shaking His head.
"I'll get us drinks," Stan said.
He walked away from them. Behind him, Amaka and Jessica had already started talking. Two girls bonded instantly by a fictional cousin with an emotional nose.
Stan walked toward the right side.
Toward Simi.
Simi was standing by the drink table in her yellow dress. She was the kind of beautiful that made the air around her look cleaner. She saw Stan approaching and waved with energy.
"You came!" she said.
"I said I would," Stan replied.
He reached the table. He picked up two cups of malta. He gave her one.
"This party is so fun," Simi said, looking around. "I love that you invited me."
"I thought you would like it."
She leaned into him slightly. "I saw on your Instagram story that someone tagged you. Some girl. Jessica-something?"
Stan sipped his malta.
"My cousin's therapist," Stan said. "She came to support. My family knows some of the people organizing tonight."
Simi nodded, satisfied.
"You are so close with your family," she said warmly. "I love that about you."
"Family is the foundation," Stan agreed.
Then Simi looked across the compound. She was looking toward the trees on the left side.
"Who is that girl in the green top?" Simi asked. "She is beautiful. Do you know her?"
Stan looked at Amaka standing by the trees, now laughing with Jessica.
"That," Stan said carefully, "is Amaka. She is in my feminist research group. The one I told you about."
"Oh! The economics project! Strong Women in Development?"
"Yes."
"She looks so nice. Can we go say hi?"
Stan looked at Simi. He looked at Amaka. He looked at the distance between them.
He did the calculation.
Simi plus Amaka plus Jessica in one conversation.
Simi who thought Amaka was a feminist research partner.
Amaka who thought Jessica was Stan's cousin's therapist.
Jessica who thought Amaka was just a nice stranger.
None of them knew they all had the same person in common.
If he brought Simi over, that was three people, three different stories, one conversation. Something would break. It always broke. One person would say the wrong thing and the whole structure would fall like a building with no foundation.
Stan needed to prevent the conversation from happening.
Or.
He could let the conversation happen. And control it.
He was tired of preventing things. Prevention was exhausting. He had been preventing things all evening and he was hungry and the jollof rice on the left side smelled very correct.
He chose control.
"Sure," Stan said. "Let's go."
He walked Simi toward Amaka and Jessica.
Tobi watched from the center of the compound.
He had now gotten a plate of jollof rice. He was eating slowly, standing alone, watching Stan walk toward the cluster of three girls like a man approaching a live wire.
"What is he doing," Tobi whispered to his rice.
Stan reached the group.
"Amaka, Jessica, this is Simi," Stan said.
The three girls looked at each other. Smiles were exchanged. The polite, assessing smiles of women who are meeting for the first time and calculating everything in three seconds.
"How do you know Stan?" Jessica asked Simi.
Stan took a sip of malta. He looked at the DJ. He looked at the lights. He looked at the generator. He looked at everything except what was happening in front of him.
"We met in the rain," Simi said, smiling. "He stood in a full storm just to make me laugh. He was completely soaked."
Amaka looked at Stan. "You did that?"
Stan looked back at them. He shrugged. One shoulder. The humble shrug. "It was raining."
"He is so unbothered by everything," Amaka said to Simi. "He just does whatever he wants."
"He doesn't care what people think at all," Simi agreed.
"And he carries so much quietly," Jessica added. "His cousin, his family. He never complains."
The three girls were now looking at Stan together.
Stan stood in the middle of three women who were all, in this moment, sharing how much they admired him. They were building each other's admiration. One girl's story was adding to the other's. They were constructing a monument.
And the monument was Stan.
Tobi, watching from the center of the compound, lowered his plate of rice slowly.
"He is going to heaven," Tobi said quietly. "Not because he deserves it. But because the devil is afraid of him."
For the next forty minutes, the four of them stood together.
Stan said very little. He had learned long ago that the less you say, the more they fill in the gaps. And people always fill the gaps with something better than reality.
The three girls talked. They discovered they all went to the same campus (expected). They discovered they had different faculties (good). They laughed together (dangerous but manageable).
At no point did they ask each other how they really knew Stan.
At no point did Stan volunteer that information.
He just stood there, holding his cup, looking like a man of few words and many depths.
Then Jessica said: "You know what, we should all take a picture."
Stan's stomach dropped exactly one floor.
"Yes!" Simi said.
"Great idea," Amaka agreed.
The three of them moved together, pressing close, angling for the camera.
They all looked at Stan to join them.
Stan looked at the camera.
One photo. Three girls. His face in the middle. On Jessica's Instagram. Where five hundred people could see it. Where someone who knew one of these girls might tag them. Where the caption would be seen. Where the comment section would have opinions.
This was not a photo.
This was evidence.
"I don't take pictures," Stan said.
Jessica looked shocked. "Ever?"
"The best moments," Stan said, "should live in memory. Not in storage."
He tapped his temple. "In here. Permanent. Unfiltered. Real."
The three girls looked at each other.
"He is right," Simi said slowly.
"That is actually profound," Amaka agreed.
"I am putting that in my next caption," Jessica said, pulling out her phone to type it down. "No photo. Just memory."
Stan finished his malta.
He had just talked three girls out of taking photographic evidence of his own destruction.
By 11 PM, people were leaving.
The generator had started its dying sounds. The jollof rice was finished. The DJ was now playing slow songs that nobody had requested.
Amaka left first. She had an early morning. She hugged Jessica. She looked at Stan with warm eyes.
"Thank you for including me tonight," she said.
"The night includes itself," Stan replied.
She shook her head at him and walked away.
Jessica left next. She had to post her story before midnight for "optimal engagement." She hugged Simi. She looked at Stan.
"Tell your cousin I am rooting for her," Jessica said.
"I will pass it on," Stan confirmed.
She left.
Simi and Stan stood alone by the trees. The colored lights were still on. The generator was kpa-kpa-kpa. Somewhere in the compound, someone was eating the last of the small chops.
"Tonight was nice," Simi said.
"Yes," Stan said.
"Your friends are cool. Amaka is really sweet. And Jessica is funny."
"They are good people."
Simi looked at him. "You know what I noticed tonight?"
"What."
"Every one of those girls admires you."
Stan said nothing.
"I mean it as an observation," Simi continued. "Not jealousy. I just noticed. You have that thing, Stan. Where people feel like you see them properly. Even when you are barely talking." She tilted her head. "Do you actually see people? Or is it a performance?"
It was the sharpest question anyone had asked Stan in months.
He looked at her.
Simi was looking back with eyes that were not performing anything. Just watching. Waiting.
The Stan answer would have been something like: "I see what people choose to hide. The rest is just noise."
Something deep. Something that made her feel understood.
But that five naira coin from the bench yesterday was still in his chest. That small, uncomfortable coin that had appeared when Amaka carried a cooler across campus in the sun.
And now here was Simi, in a yellow dress, at 11 PM, asking him if he was real.
Stan looked at the last colored lights swinging in the trees.
"Sometimes," he said.
Not a full answer. Not a line. Just an honest sound.
Simi nodded slowly. Like that was enough. Like "sometimes" was actually more than she expected.
"Okay," she said softly. "Sometimes is fine."
She said goodnight. She walked away.
Stan stood alone under the trees.
He thought about three things in this order:
One: He had managed an impossible situation using only his brain and no money.
Two: He was exhausted in a way that sleep would not fix.
Three: The jollof rice was completely finished and he had not eaten a single plate.
That last one hurt the most.
Tobi was waiting at the room when he got back.
He was sitting on the plastic chair. The light was on. He had that look. The look of a man with things to say.
Stan put his keys on the table. He sat on his bed.
"So," Tobi said.
"So," Stan said.
"All three of them were in the same spot for forty minutes."
"Yes."
"And none of them figured out they all know you."
"Correct."
"Because you made Jessica the cousin's therapist, Amaka the feminist partner, and Simi the rain girl. Three different categories. Zero overlap."
"Yes."
"And when Jessica wanted a photo, you gave them philosophy instead of your face."
"The moment lives in memory, Tobi."
Tobi looked at him for a long time.
"Stan," Tobi said finally.
"What."
"You are a deeply, deeply gifted person." He paused. "It is a tragedy that you are using this gift to run three relationship simulations at once instead of, I don't know, solving world hunger."
"I thought about world hunger," Stan said, lying back on the bed. "But none of those girls have food."
"Amaka literally cooked for you yesterday."
"I meant Jessica. And Simi."
"Right." Tobi turned off his light. "Did you at least eat anything tonight?"
Stan stared at the ceiling.
"No," Stan said.
"Why not?"
"I was busy managing the situation."
Silence.
"I have one Indomie," Tobi said from the darkness.
"How many sachets of spice?"
"One."
"I will take it."
Tobi got up and put the water on.
They sat in the quiet of the room. The generator downstairs was winding down. Somewhere on the corridor, someone was laughing loudly at their phone.
Tobi passed Stan the noodles.
Stan ate standing over the small pot. Straight from the pot, no plate, because the plates were dirty and pride has its limits after midnight.
"Tobi," Stan said between bites.
"What."
"Simi asked me something tonight."
"What did she ask?"
"She asked if I actually see people. Or if it is a performance."
Tobi said nothing for a moment.
"What did you say?" Tobi asked.
"I said 'sometimes.'"
Another silence.
"Was that true?" Tobi asked.
Stan ate the last of the noodles. He put the pot in the corner for morning Stan to deal with.
He lay back on his bed.
He looked at the ceiling.
"I don't know," Stan said.
Tobi was quiet.
The fan clicked. The corridor settled. The night went still.
"That," Tobi said softly, "might be the most honest thing you have said all year."
Stan said nothing.
He closed his eyes.
Outside, the last of the party lights blinked off one by one.
Mission Status: Alive. But thinking.