Timothy would later admit to himself that it was not the tools that frightened him, but the look on Ronnie’s face when he saw them. It was the look of someone waiting for the world to break in.

When Ronnie first moved in, he seemed almost dazzling. He wore his shirts ironed to a sharpness that made Timothy suddenly aware of his fraying collars. Ronnie spoke with an easy confidence, saying he had come to the city to start an import-export business. He said it the way some people say, “I’m going to church”, matter-of-fact, rehearsed. Timothy believed him.

And why not? Ronnie laughed loudly, tipped the women who sold roasted corn on the roadside, and knew which officials to bribe at the motor park. He was the sort of man who made the city bend a little, like it owed him something.

So Timothy didn’t expect to come home one night to find him crouched under the bed, pulling out a worn black bag. Inside: saws, drills, a bunch of keys, and a small gun that gleamed under the dim bulb.

Timothy froze at the door. “Ronnie,” he said, his voice thin, “what is this?”

Ronnie did not look up. His hands were steady, but his breathing was not. “Tools,” he said. “Just tools.”

“Tools for what? You’re not a carpenter. You said import-export.”

Finally, Ronnie lifted his head. There was no humour in his eyes now, no easy grin. “Not everything people carry is for what you think,” he said softly.

That night, Timothy lay awake listening to the creak of the mattress beside him. He imagined headlines: Two Roommates Caught in Armed Robbery. He imagined his mother shaking her head, saying she had warned him about city boys.

The next day, Timothy avoided him, slipping out early and returning late. But avoidance has its limits. On the third day, Ronnie confronted him.

“You think I’m a thief.”

It wasn’t a question.

Timothy swallowed. “I don’t know what to think. Why else would you need those things?”

“Do you know what it is to wake up every night because you believe someone is breaking in? Do you know what it is to feel the walls closing on you?” He looked away. “I grew up in a house where my father used to come home drunk, breaking doors, throwing things. I learned to sleep with one eye open. I learned that the only safety is the one you create with your own hands.” These tools, he pointed toward the bag, “they make me feel I can survive.”

Timothy blinked, caught between disbelief and pity. “But a gun? Ronnie, a gun?”

Ronnie’s voice dropped. “When I was twelve, I hid under the bed while my father beat my mother so badly she lost a tooth. I thought if I had a weapon, I could stop him. Since then… I don’t know how to live without one nearby. It’s like breathing.”

The room was silent except for the whir of the ceiling fan, slicing the air. Timothy thought of his own father, a quiet man who corrected with words, whose anger was in sighs, not fists. He realised he had never known fear in his own home. He realised Ronnie had never known anything else.

Still, suspicion tugged at him. “So the business was that a lie, too?”

“No,” Ronnie said quickly. “I do want to start. I want a life bigger than my past. But healing is not magic. It’s work. And sometimes, people like me… we carry baggage you can’t see.”

For the first time, Timothy noticed the small tremor in Ronnie’s hand, the dark half-moons beneath his eyes. He wasn’t a criminal. He was something harder to name: a man unhealed, carrying his childhood like a second skin.

That evening, Timothy sat with him on the balcony. They ate bread and sardines in silence until Ronnie said, “You know, people see a gun and think danger. They never think of fear.”

Weeks passed. Ronnie started his business, small at first, importing phone accessories from China and reselling them to shops at the Alaba market. He dressed just as sharply, talked just as confidently. But sometimes, Timothy would still catch him at night, touching the bag beneath the bed like a child clutching a teddy bear.

One evening, Timothy asked, “Do you think you’ll ever stop needing it?”

Ronnie gave a tired smile. I hope so, healing is a room I keep knocking on.

Timothy never asked again. He learned that sometimes, people’s scars look like weapons. Sometimes, danger is only the disguise of fear.

And that, perhaps, was the real mystery of Ronnie, not what he did, but what he survived.

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All images created with Canva AI. I would like to invite @kwinberry, @etoro @eliany to join this contest.