There is a special kind of joy that comes with a salary alert. It is a small, shining notification that says, “Your account has been credited.” For about four minutes, you are a king. You walk differently. You greet strangers. You consider buying a second plate of rice.
Then reality knocks. This is the story of Emeka, a hard-working office assistant, and the shortest love affair of his life: the one between him and his salary.
9:03 a.m. The Alert
Emeka was sitting at his desk when his phone buzzed. He looked at the screen and smiled. The money had entered. He did not even need to check the amount. He could feel it in his chest, like the first sip of cold water on a hot afternoon.
He opened the banking app, looked at the balance, and whispered, “Thank you, God.” Then he closed the app quickly, like a man afraid the number might change if he stared at it too long.
His colleague Bisi leaned over. “Alert?” “Alert,” said Emeka. They shared a moment of respectful silence, the way people do in front of a miracle.
9:30 a.m. The Rent Reminder
The first message arrived within half an hour. It was from his landlord. “Good morning, Mr. Emeka. I hope you are well. Just a gentle reminder about the rent.”
The word “gentle” was doing a lot of work. Emeka had received this message every month for three years. It always arrived on the exact day of the alert, which made him wonder if the landlord had a secret connection to the bank.
He paid. The balance dropped. He told himself it was fine. After all, rent is the cost of having somewhere to sleep, and sleep is very important.
12:00 p.m. The Transport Tax
At lunch, he remembered he owed his friend Chuka some money for a lift last week. Then he remembered the bus fare increase. Then he remembered his cousin who had once promised to repay him for a phone charger. Nobody had remembered that promise except Emeka.
He bought a prepaid transport card, filled it with enough credit for the month, and felt like a man who had just invested in the future. The balance dropped again. He glanced at it with the polite smile of a man looking at a fading rainbow.
3:30 p.m. The Family Call
His phone rang. It was his Aunty Nkechi, who always seemed to call precisely when the bank sent the alert. “My dear Emeka, how are you? How is work? How is life?” She asked about his health, his job and his shoes before getting to the point.
“There is a small something I need,” she said sweetly. “Just a small thing. My neighbour’s goat has entered my compound and eaten my cassava. I need to repair the fence.”
Emeka had so many questions. Whose goat? Why the fence? Why now? But in a Nigerian family, you do not ask questions when an aunt says “small something”. You simply say, “Yes, Aunty,” and send the money, then wait for a prayer.
The prayer came within a minute. It was beautiful and detailed, and it covered his job, his future wife and his unborn children. Emeka smiled. At least the goat had a good lawyer.
6:00 p.m. The Subscription Surprise
That evening, as he lay on his bed, a notification appeared. “Your subscription has been renewed.” He sat up. “Which subscription?”
He opened his phone and discovered he was paying for a music app he never used, a streaming service he had forgotten, a fitness app he had opened once, and a mysterious thing called “Premium Plus Gold Max”. He could not recall signing up for any of them.
He cancelled three. The fourth cancelled him back, by asking, “Are you sure you want to leave us?” with a sad face. He closed the app, because he did not have emotional energy left.
11:58 p.m. The Final Balance
Before bed, Emeka opened his banking app one last time. The balance was small. Not zero, but small, like the last biscuit in a packet shared by too many people.
He looked at it for a long moment. He had paid the rent, the transport, the fence, the subscriptions and a surprise bill for something called “service charge”. It was not even the end of the day, and his money had gone on a full holiday.
He laughed, because there was nothing else to do. Then he made a promise, the same promise he made every month: next time, he would budget. He would save. He would be wise.
His phone buzzed. A new message from Bisi: “Emeka, do you have change for a small loan until the end of the month?”
He stared at the screen, smiled, and typed, “Let me check my bank.” Then he turned off his phone and went to sleep, a poor man with a rich sense of humour, ready to do it all again next month.
