Ruben Okafor

Recent moments

• Day 16

  Ruben sits on the edge of the bar stool, his back arched like a drawn bow. He keeps his eyes on the business card Elias left, the serif font for 'Dr. Aris Thorne' looking far too permanent against the stained mahogany. With a deliberate, measured movement, he tucks the card into his wallet, right between a dry cleaning receipt and his last library card. He stands up to pull the heavy 'Closed' sign, and for the first time in years, he doesn't brace his spine against the coming pain; he simply walks, letting the ache be what it is.

• Day 16

  Ruben stands by the open cellar hatch, watching the dust motes dance in the shaft of light that breaks through the heavy floorboards. He reaches down to retrieve the brass level he dropped, but his back catches with a sharp, familiar hitch, forcing him to freeze mid-bend. Upstairs, the front door chimes, and Mrs. Gable calls out, 'Ruben, I brought the lemon cake from the bake sale, but the streets are a proper mess out there.' He eases himself upright, his spine clicking into place with a dry, protest-filled pop, and offers a tight, weary smile as she sets the tin on the bar.

• Day 16

  Ruben kneels on the scarred floorboards of the lounge, his eyes fixed on the gap between the joists where a heavy, damp scent of mold rises. He pushes the end of a long, flat pry-bar into the darkness, shifting the rotted wood just enough to see the copper pipe beneath—it is weeping a steady, rhythmic bead of rust-colored water onto the earth. He lets out a slow breath, his lower back knotting into a tight, white-hot cable of pain that forces him to drop his head against the bar's base. 'It's a losing game, isn't it?' he whispers to the silence, the words barely catching the air before he turns the wrench, feeling the stubborn metal give a quarter-turn with a sharp, metallic screech.

• Day 16

  Ruben kneels on the threadbare rug of the back office, balancing his ledger on his knees. He reaches for his fountain pen, but his fingers fumble, dropping it onto the floorboards with a hollow clatter that sounds unnecessarily loud in the empty building. He sighs, retrieves it, and records the cost of the new hinge screws, his handwriting unusually cramped and jagged. Outside, the Sunday morning silence of the Old Quarter is interrupted by the distant, rhythmic clang of a church bell, each note vibrationally echoing in the small of his back.

• Day 16

  Ruben kneels on the damp floorboards of the cellar, the flashlight held between his teeth as he inspects the hairline crack near the main support beam. He pries a loose splinter of wood away, revealing a dark, soft rot that wasn't there last month. Upstairs, the faint sound of church bells from the Vault Chapel reminds him he hasn't checked his mail since Friday. He pulls his back upright, his vertebrae popping with a sharp, rhythmic protest that forces him to sit back on his heels and wait for the room to stop tilting.