I

In the early hours of the morning, long before the first cock had cleared its throat or the birds had agreed on the key for their daily choir practice, Madonudenu was already up, wrestling with the stubborn gate of the compound house in Atonsu. The thing groaned and creaked like an old pensioner forced out of bed before his tea. It had not seen oil since the NDC’s last victory, and Madonudenu had long given up asking the landlord for any. He knew how to handle it now, jiggle the lock left, lift the latch slightly, whisper a small insult under his breath, and it would open, albeit with a complaint.

The compound, at this hour, lay in that strange half-silence known only to places that host too many people and too many secrets. Twelve rooms stood arranged like contestants in a local beauty pageant, each one trying its best to outdo the others with new paint, plastic chairs, or hanging laundry. Six porches, all unevenly swept, and a shared bathroom that echoed like the inside of a church when someone had the misfortune of leaving the tap running. The corridor leading down the middle of the house was paved with the kind of broken tiles that had clearly been chosen for their ability to injure. Madonudenu, after a month of trial and error, now moved through it like a trained soldier avoiding landmines, he knew exactly which bricks to step over to dodge last night’s rain puddles, and which floorboards to spare, lest they protest like a jealous girlfriend woken up too early.

Even the house itself, if one listened carefully, seemed to be snoring. A soft rhythm of coughs, snores, and the occasional sleep-mutter floated from its belly, in a symphony of tired lungs and unfinished dreams. But for Madonudenu, this was the best time of the day, when everyone else was still deep inside their mattresses, and he could lay quiet claim to the compound, as if, for a moment, it all belonged to him.

II

Madonudenu was twenty-four years old, and if there was one thing he had learned after four years of lectures, term papers, and rice with red stew at the KNUST Jophus Anamuah-Mensah canteen, it was that a university degree did not come with automatic employment, only expectations. He had studied sociology, a subject his mother had initially misunderstood as something to do with socials, like organizing parties, and only later came to accept after the church deacon explained that it had “big grammar and potential.”

After graduation, he did what every respectable young man with an empty pocket and a full certificate does in Ghana: he waited. He applied to jobs with long titles and no reply, submitted CVs that disappeared into the void, and even briefly considered going to Nigeria “just to try something.” But salvation arrived not through any job board or HR portal, but through that reliable, invisible web of Ghanaian survival: family connections. This one came via his uncle’s friend’s cousin, a man known only as Wofa Joe, who had a missing tooth, five children, and the miraculous ability to find “something small” for everyone. It was Wofa Joe who called one Saturday morning to say, “Madonudenu, I get something for you o. It’s not big, but it’s something. You’ll be a caretaker.”

Caretaker? That word sat in Madonudenu’s chest like overcooked yam.

But work was work, and the caretaker’s room, a square-shaped cell at the back of a noisy compound house in Atonsu, came with no rent, a working ceiling fan, and the faint smell of old paint and cockroach spray. He moved in the following week with a Ghana-Must-Go bag, his degree in a black polythene folder, and his mother’s parting words still ringing in his ear like the chorus of a highlife song.

“You went to school to come and scrub toilets?” she had said on the phone, her voice flat at first. But even as the words came out, there was something else swimming underneath, not quite shame, and not quite sarcasm either. Madonudenu recognized it instantly. It was that peculiar blend of Ghanaian motherly emotion: pride trying very hard to disguise itself as disappointment, just in case you got too comfortable. Because deep down, she was proud. Proud that her son was standing on his own, even if on wet, cracked compound tiles.

Madonudenu had smiled quietly after the call. He knew his mother. She would tell her prayer group he was now “managing a property” in Kumasi.

And in a way, she wasn’t wrong.

III

Every day begins in the same way, as predictable as a church bell on Sunday morning. By 5:30 a.m., while the rest of the compound is still lost in dreams of visa lotteries and instant promotions, Madonudenu is already out with his broom, an elderly thing that has survived one too many harmattan seasons. The broom sheds more twigs than a frightened bird, but Madonudenu has learned that appearances don’t matter as long as the corridor looks clean enough to stop the tenants from murmuring. In this house, murmuring was a spiritual gift, quiet, persistent, and often more dangerous than a landlord’s rent reminder.

He begins at one end of the corridor and works his way down like a priest administering early-morning blessings. There are puddles to dodge, moths to chase away, and one suspicious-looking lizard that has taken up permanent residence near the flowerpot outside Room 3. Madonudenu has named it Joseph, not out of affection, but because Joseph, like many of the men in the house, seems to appear and disappear without explanation.

Outside Room 1, he pauses to gather the daily offering of newspapers that Old Man Bawa leaves strewn across the porch like political confetti. The man reads Daily Graphic, The Ghanaian Times, and any flyer that happens to mention President John Mahama or free SHS. He reads them all with the seriousness of a judge, but when it comes time to dispose of them, he simply lets the wind decide. Madonudenu, who has become an involuntary librarian, carefully folds the pages and stacks them beside the old man’s brown leather sandals, sandals which, it must be said, have not touched tarred road in at least two years. Bawa walks barefoot, muttering about “grounding his energy,” though most people suspect it’s just because the straps are broken.

Then it’s on to the bathroom, the dreaded communal chamber of horrors. He pushes the wooden door gently, bracing for whatever surprises the night might have left behind. This morning, thankfully, there are no new cockroaches. Just the old ones, keeping to their corner like tenants who know their rent is due. He gives the sink a wipe with a rag that used to be a T-shirt, flushes the stubborn toilet twice just to remind it who’s boss, and sighs with quiet satisfaction. A small victory.

Lastly, he checks the water drums. If ECG, the Electricity Company of Ghana, or rather, Everyday Current Gone, had been feeling generous the night before, the pipes might have hissed and gurgled out a reluctant trickle. If not, he would have to fetch water from across the road and endure the disapproving looks of the compound aunties, who measured manhood by how much water a young man could carry without sloshing.

This was the cadence of his mornings: sweeping, folding, checking, fetching. Not glamorous, certainly not what the sociology department had promised. But it was honest work. And in a place like this, honest work was a kind of resistance, a way to keep the day from collapsing too quickly.

By 6:00 a.m., the day has gathered its strength, and Madonudenu, broom duties complete, forehead glistening with the dew of responsibility, begins the small pilgrimage that sustains him: the walk to the koko seller at the junction.

She is a formidable Hausa woman known simply as Mma Ayisha, though most people call her Koko Madam. She runs her stall like a general commanding a battalion. Her voice is sharp enough to cut plantain, and her hands move with such speed that one might believe she had been trained in a chop bar dojo. The large aluminium pot that holds the koko, warm, brown, and spiced with ginger, cloves, and quiet magic, sits like a sacred drum over the coal pot. The koose sizzles in its oily basin beside it, each ball golden and puffed like it has risen early for morning devotion.

By the time Madonudenu arrives, the queue is already long, snaking past the mango tree and bending politely around a pothole that has survived three local assemblymen and two rainy seasons. But he doesn’t mind. In fact, he likes it. There is something calming, even holy, about the smell of warm millet porridge rising with the morning mist. It settles something in his chest, as if all his unanswered job applications and his mother’s worried prayers have been folded gently into the steam.

The koko line is its own kind of community. Here, strangers make small talk about ECG’s latest betrayal, football scores, or why the president’s nose always looks suspiciously powdered on television. Everyone becomes equal in the queue, the banker, the trotro mate, the SHS girl with oversized shoes, the newly heartbroken man sighing into his plastic bowl.

Madonudenu buys one bowl for himself and another for Madam Joyce in Room 4, not out of obligation, but habit. The old woman, whose knees have apparently been threatening to retire since the Nkrumah era, complains loudly and frequently about her arthritis. Yet somehow, as if guided by ancestral spirits, she always manages to sweep her porch before Madonudenu gets there, just to remind him that laziness is not welcome in this compound. Still, she accepts the koko with a half-smile and a full mouth, and sometimes even offers a blessing in return, the kind that begins with, “May the Lord open doors…” and ends with “…that no landlord can shut.”

Madonudenu never refuses.

He balances the bowls on a tray, his steps careful as he navigates the return route, dodging puddles, chickens, and one enthusiastic goat that seems to believe all food belongs to it. The sun is stretching now, and the day is officially awake.

Breakfast has been acquired. Peace has been negotiated. The work of living, it seems, can now begin.

As Madonudenu makes his way back to the compound, balancing the koko like a seasoned waiter at a roadside chop bar, the streets of Atonsu are beginning to stir from their slumber, reluctantly at first, like a child who knows school is calling but insists on one more minute under the blanket.

The dawn air is still cool, scented with a mixture of damp earth, wood smoke, and the early promise of sweat. A trotro, that majestic beast of burden with a rusted body and a stubborn engine, coughs and rumbles past him, trailing a ribbon of black smoke like a politician making an exit after a broken promise. Its mate, a young man with a voice trained in the school of open-air shouting, leans halfway out the window, his head swiveling like a satellite dish.

“Tech Junction! Tech Junction! One more! One back!” he cries, banging the roof with one hand and motioning wildly with the other, as if trying to summon passengers from thin air. His shirt is unbuttoned halfway, revealing a white singlet that is now more brown than white, and his hair, styled in something that might once have been a fade, dances in the wind. He sees Madonudenu, sizes him up quickly, and adds, “Boss, Tech? Last seat! I dey go now now!” Madonudenu shakes his head with a smile. Every morning it’s the same. Every morning, the mate behaves as if he’s in a Hollywood car chase and Madonudenu is the final passenger who can save the world.

Children begin to pour onto the streets like beans from a torn bag, all legs, noise, and over-sized school uniforms that flap around them. Their backpacks are either too light to contain anything useful or so heavy one must wonder if they are carrying all their family's hopes and dreams in one load. They dart between puddles with the agility of goats and the recklessness of small gods. Their laughter rings out, sharp, sudden, and joyful, slicing through the sleepy morning air like cold mango juice through a dry harmattan throat.

A little boy stops briefly to stare at Madonudenu’s tray. He looks longingly at the koose, then continues running without a word, his shorts slipping down ever so slightly with each heroic stride.

The neighbourhood is fully awake now, stretching its limbs and adjusting its wrappers. Radios crackle to life. A distant frying pan sings. Somewhere, someone is already arguing about the price of tomatoes. Madonudenu walks on, the warm koko steady in his hands, the whole world rising slowly around him like a pot of banku on low fire.

IV

Back in the compound, life has begun to unroll, slowly, noisily, and without apology,  like a roll of fresh kente fabric flung open on a busy Kejetia market day: full of colour, wrinkles, and hidden surprises. There is a rhythm to it all, a kind of controlled chaos that only the compound truly understands.

The baby in Room 2 starts crying right on cue, as though on payroll. His mother, a slim, wiry woman with a voice that could fry plantain from across the room, does not move immediately. She lets him cry for exactly the amount of time it takes to finish her Milo. Only then does she rise, muttering curses in Ewe that even the baby, who is barely nine months old, seems to understand.

From the far end, Room 9’s door creaks open, a door that has creaked so consistently that the sound has become part of the compound’s morning playlist. Out steps the university girl. Her name is either Anita or Angela, no one is quite sure, because she speaks to no one and minds her business with the diligence of a nun in silent retreat. She is always wearing black leggings and an oversized T-shirt advertising a church crusade that happened three years ago. Her face is serious, her eyes forever hidden behind thick-framed spectacles, and her expression carries the permanent weight of somebody who has seen things, perhaps in lectures, perhaps in life.

She sets up her laundry buckets with military precision, pours in Omo like she’s making a potion, and begins to scrub. All this while wearing earphones, those stubborn white ones that dangle like small ropes from her ears, and nodding rhythmically to music that no one else can hear but is clearly very powerful. Her head bobs, her shoulders follow, and once, Madonudenu swears, he sees her lips move. A whole dance party, just for one.

Madonudenu watches her for a moment from his corner near the water drums. He has made exactly one attempt at conversation since she moved in, a brief nod and a half-smile on her first week, when they both reached for the tap at the same time. She had returned the nod with the cold precision of a diplomat acknowledging a minor ambassador. That was enough. In compound politics, one nod could last a whole tenancy.

He often wonders where she’s from. Not Kumasi, no, she doesn’t move like a local. She walks with purpose, like someone who grew up in a quieter place, perhaps Sunyani or Bolga, where people say good morning whether they know you or not. Maybe she came to Kumasi for school, like he did, chasing certificates and ambitions that had no place to live. Maybe she, too, had parents who called every Sunday to ask, “Have you eaten?” before sliding into long sighs and warnings about friends who become bad company. But Madonudenu doesn’t dwell too long. In a compound house, attention is currency, spend too much of it on one person, and someone will come to ask questions you’re not ready to answer.

He picks up his broom again, but this time, a little slower. Life has resumed. The orchestra of the compound is tuning its instruments. And the day, now fully awake, is just getting started.

By midday, the sun is perched high and unbothered in the sky, beating down on rooftops, heads, and ambitions alike. The compound begins to shimmer under the weight of the heat, as if God Himself had decided to roast Kumasi slowly, like groundnuts before market day.

And right on cue, as if summoned by the heat, the carpenter appears, a man whose full name nobody knows, but whom everyone calls Akwasi Nails. He arrives with a bag of tools, a smell of sawdust, and the confidence of a man whose ancestors had once built palaces. The irony, of course, is that Akwasi Nails is rarely fixing anything that is actually broken. He is the type of artisan who believes firmly that if a chair is not wobbling, then it is hiding something.

Today, he is on the staircase, hammering at a loose railing that was perfectly secure yesterday. Each kpa! kpa! kpa! of his hammer echoes through the compound like a sermon, sending vibrations through bowls of soup and people’s last nerve. Children scatter at the sound, fearing their mothers might mistake them for apprentices and hand them a nail to hold. He whistles as he works, loud and off-key, occasionally pausing to shout at the wood, as if it is a stubborn child refusing to listen. “Ah, why? Don’t you know you are a railing? Behave like one!”

Madonudenu watches the familiar performance from under the mango tree at the back of the compound, his refuge when the sun becomes more aggressive than usual. The tree offers only partial shade, the kind that mocks you by shifting just when you’ve found a comfortable spot, but it is enough. He is slouched on a white plastic chair that has clearly lived a thousand lives and is now dangerously close to retirement. In his hand is his phone, screen cracked at the corner, the internet connection moving with the grace of a snail on pilgrimage.

He scrolls through job alerts with the same expression a man wears when checking lottery numbers he knows he didn’t win. The listings blur into one another, each one more imaginative than the last. “Junior Assistant Development Analyst – must have 5 years’ experience.” “Entry-Level Research Officer – Master’s degree required.” “Marketing Intern – Must own a car.”

Madonudenu blinks. “Five years’ experience?” he mutters, eyes narrowing in disbelief. “Experience in what, breathing? Or is it womb-to-workforce training they expect now?”

The absurdity stings, but only slightly. He still applies. Every time.

He has mastered the art of hopeful clicking, adjusting CVs, changing cover letters, inserting action verbs like “coordinated” and “facilitated,” even though most of what he has truly facilitated in life is his own survival.

Under the tree, in the lazy arms of early afternoon, he dreams quietly of offices with air conditioning and meetings where people use words like “deliverables” and “KPIs.” But for now, he sits, he scrolls, he applies.

Akwasi Nails lets out a triumphant grunt and proclaims to no one in particular, “It is finished!”

Madonudenu nods slowly, not sure whether the man is quoting Jesus or just announcing the end of his tinkering.

Either way, the day moves on.

Sometimes, when the skies darken without warning and the rain begins to fall like a landlord with unpaid bills, loud, insistent, and with no intention of stopping, the compound folds into itself. Tenants retreat behind their doors, porches fill with laundry taken too late off the line, and the air becomes thick with the smell of wet earth and fried something.

These are the moments Madonudenu treasures.

With the compound temporarily muted and Akwasi Nails off duty (for even he cannot fix in the rain), Madonudenu slips quietly into the storage room behind his caretaker’s quarters, a modest chamber that holds the compound’s forgotten ambitions. Inside are rusted nails, half-used paint buckets, a broken fan that once promised harmattan relief, and a mop that retired three years ago but still shows up for roll call. In the corner, carefully stacked on a wooden crate, are his treasures, not gold or silver, but books. Novels, to be precise. Borrowed long ago from a campus friend who now sells herbal bitters in Madina.

Achebe. Aidoo. Armah.

They sit beside the turpentine and cobwebs like elders waiting to be consulted. Their pages are dog-eared and spotted with age, but their voices remain strong, thunderous even, rising above the patter of the rain like ancestral drummers. Madonudenu wipes his hands on his shirt, picks one, perhaps The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, or Our Sister Killjoy, or Things Fall Apart (again), and lowers himself onto a stool that leans slightly to the left, as if it too is pondering the tragedy of postcolonial disillusionment.

He reads slowly, deliberately, like someone chewing roasted plantain, no need to rush when there’s nothing waiting on the other side. The words speak to him in ways that job listings and compound gossip never could. A line from Aidoo might make him laugh out loud, causing the lizards on the ceiling to pause their game of freeze tag. Achebe’s voice, full of quiet power, settles in his chest like a proverb too important to ignore. Armah, of course, always leaves him brooding, scratching his head like a man trying to count invisible coins.

In those moments, he feels strangely rich.

The rain outside might flood the compound and confuse the goats, but inside that musty room, Madonudenu is elsewhere, walking with Okwonkwo, side-eying Sister Killjoy, standing at the bus stop with The Man, wondering, as they all do, whether this country will ever make sense.

And when he finally looks up, eyes blinking in the soft, post-rain light, he is not sad. No, not sad at all. He is reminded that he is not lost, not broken, not forgotten. Only paused.

V

Evening settles over the compound not with ceremony, but with the slow persistence of dust, creeping into corners, softening the edges of everything, refusing to be ignored. The heat retreats, the breeze returns, and the day exhales its final breath like an old market woman easing into her plastic chair after packing the last tomato.

One by one, the tenants return from their separate journeys, offices, shops, kiosks, streets. Slippers slap against wet cement, metal gates screech, and the compound begins its familiar hum. Not too loud, not too quiet, the comfortable murmur of human beings trying not to disturb one another while still being fully themselves.

A baby giggles somewhere, probably the one in Room 2, now freshly bathed and bribed with biscuits. A hiss of hot oil follows soon after, announcing the frying of plantain. The smell rises immediately, wrapping itself around the compound like gossip, warm, irresistible, and slightly judgmental. Madonudenu, who has already eaten his feelings at lunch, sighs. Fried plantain, he believes, should be classified as a temptation in the Bible.

But there is still work to do.

With a rag tucked into the waistband of his shorts like a seasoned janitor, Madonudenu sweeps the corridor again, second time today. Not because it’s dirty, but because Room 6 exists. The woman inside, Madam Gloria, is the unofficial compound supervisor, judge, and spiritual CCTV. A retired nurse with eyes sharper than a mosquito net hook, she watches Madonudenu the way a hawk watches chicks: with suspicion and the secret hope that one of them will trip.

He wipes the stair rails carefully, even the parts nobody touches, and pours warm water along the mossy edge of the entrance step, the very spot where Madam Gloria once claimed she nearly “slipped and entered hospital by force.” The woman had reported him three times already: once for “lack of attention to algae,” once for “mop negligence,” and once, confusingly, for “sweeping too late.” Madonudenu has since decided that preemptive cleaning is the only path to peace.

By 8:15 p.m., the compound has begun to yawn. The air is cooler now, the kind that makes you want to talk slower, think longer, and eat with gratitude.

Madonudenu lowers himself onto his small porch stool, a plastic chair missing one leg cap, now permanently tilted like a politician avoiding a straight answer. In his hands, a modest bowl of rice and garden egg stew, prepared two nights ago and tasting better now thanks to the divine rule of leftovers.

Above him, the moon has taken its place, unbothered, full-bellied, and steady. It casts a silver light over the compound’s patched-up walls and uneven porches, forgiving everything it sees. Somewhere, from a room with poor soundproofing, a radio plays highlife, that sweet, nostalgic kind with horns and heartbreak, and Madonudenu taps his foot softly.

The compound has quieted now. Only the occasional flush of a toilet, the clink of a spoon against enamel, or the closing of a window interrupts the peace.

And Madonudenu, caretaker, graduate, dreamer, sits quietly, not with sadness, not even with hope, but with the calm acceptance that the day has been lived.

And tomorrow, God willing, it will return again, stubborn, familiar, full of small duties and even smaller joys.

Just as he finishes the last spoonful of rice, the phone in his pocket buzzes, a gentle, insistent vibration, as though the phone, too, understands the time of day. He pulls it out, screen cracked in one corner, battery clinging to 12%, and smiles when he sees the name: Ma.

A short text. Two lines. No emojis, no full stops. Just pure maternal electricity.

You eat?
God sees everything. Don’t worry too much.

Madonudenu reads it twice. The first line is a question of the body. The second, of the soul. His mother, a woman who never learned to rest, has perfected the art of saying too much with very little. In those nine words, she has covered hunger, hope, divine surveillance, and anxiety, and still left room for dessert.

He chuckles, the way one chuckles when the heart is both full and slightly bruised.

He types back slowly, thumb hovering over the keys like he’s choosing blessings at a revival.

Yes. I’m fine. Love you, Ma.

It’s not the full truth, but it’s not a lie either. He is not starving, he is not broken. He is somewhere between waiting and becoming, and for now, that will do.

He puts the phone down and leans back in his tilted chair, the bowl now empty on the floor beside him. The night has arrived fully now, with its strange and sacred scents, the smell of black soap wafting from the communal bathroom, the faint sourness of overripe mangoes fermenting near the wall, and the earthy musk of wet concrete, warmed and cooled in the same day.

Somewhere, behind a closed door, a kettle whistles.

Somewhere else, a tired father clears his throat in preparation for his evening complaints.

And then, inevitably, as if on schedule, the baby in Room 2 begins to cry again. A high, stubborn wail, the soundtrack of the compound’s nights.

Madonudenu doesn’t move. He only smiles again, softer this time. Because he knows the baby will sleep. The tenants will sleep. Even Akwasi Nails will sleep.

And tomorrow, just as surely as the sun will rise, the day will begin again, with sweeping, koko, compound gossip, and another polite nod to the girl in Room 9. But for now, there is rest. Under the steady eye of the moon, Madonudenu sits, young, waiting, watched by God, and held, gently, in the rhythm of things. Tomorrow, the routine will return like a well-trained goat, stubborn but dependable. Madonudenu will rise before the birds clear their throats, sweep the corridor with his thinning broom, dodge the same puddles, and murmur greetings to the same sleepy tenants who will pretend not to hear him. He’ll fetch water, if ECG and the pipes can agree to behave. He’ll buy koko from Mma Ayisha, listen to the same trotro mates shouting “Tech Junction!” like they are summoning spirits, and try not to look too long at the girl in Room 9 as she nods to her invisible choir.

And of course, he’ll send more job applications, three, maybe four, depending on how generous the internet feels. Each one sent like a message in a bottle, tossed into a digital sea of HR officers who demand ten years of experience for entry-level positions and expect your CV to part the Red Sea.

But all of that is tomorrow’s problem.

Tonight, the air is soft and full of small mercies. The moon hangs above the compound like an old friend who says nothing but understands everything. Somewhere, someone is still frying plantain. A baby coughs. A radio whizzes the last notes of a highlife song that no one remembers the name of but everyone somehow knows by heart.

And Madonudenu, son of Gamelo from Hohoe, graduate of Sociology from KNUST, caretaker of twelve rooms and one forever-dripping tap, sits on his tilted plastic chair, the weight of the day melting off his shoulders like shea butter in the sun.

Tonight, Kumasi does not offer answers, or signs, or miracles. But it wraps itself around him all the same, in the smell of old mangoes, the warmth of leftover stew, the quiet blessing of an ordinary evening.