*The Man Who Collected Last Minutes

In Abuja, there was a boy named Tunde who had a strange habit.

He collected the _last_ minutes of things.

Not photos. Not videos. He would sit and wait for the exact last minute.

The last minute before NEPA brings light back.
The last minute before rain starts - when the wind smells like iron.
The last minute before his mama finishes cooking jollof - when the kitchen is quietest.

He wrote them down in a small black book.

"12:03pm - Last minute before Danfo full. Everybody squeeze, then one woman laugh and everybody laugh."

When he grew older, people thought it was useless. His friends said, "Tunde, why you no collect money? You dey collect breeze?"

One day in 2024, his elder sister was about to travel to Canada. She was crying at the airport. Tunde held her hand and whispered, "Don't cry yet. This is the last minute before you become somebody who lives in Canada. How does it feel?"

She stopped crying. She looked around. She memorized the smell of the airport, the sound of his voice, the way her mum was holding her wrapper.

"Heavy," she said. "But sweet."

She entered the plane.

Years later, she called him from Toronto. "Tunde, I'm about to get married."

He asked, "What are you doing right now?"

"I'm sitting alone in my room before the ceremony."

"Good," he said. "Write it down. That's a last minute before you become a wife. Collect it."

She did.

Tunde never became rich. His black book never sold for millions. But when he was 60, he had 4,000 last minutes.

And whenever anyone in his compound was sad because something was ending - school, relationship, job - they would go to Tunde's small shop.

He would offer them tea and say, "Tell me about the last minute. Not the ending. The minute _before_ the ending."

And somehow, they always left feeling like they didn't lose something.

They had collected it.