Camera 3

by Favour Emmanuel

---

It’s 3:17 a.m. The building is mostly glass, and the cold is spread across it like when you breathe on a window. From his little booth, Musa can see the glass panes stretching up into dark floors above him, the kind of architecture that feels proud of itself. More than once, he hoped its pride would materialise and turn into something to keep him warm. Four years in Belgium, and the cold still stings him raw, gloves and coffee barely helping.

He’s halfway through a shift that keeps on feeling longer than it is supposed to, but at least, as usual, it’s quiet. He watches the lobby camera more out of habit than vigilance, really. It’s not like there’s much to catch or miss. It isn’t a dangerous building, just an expensive one. The tenants are tech people, lawyers, a handful of diplomats. At this hour, though, the place belongs only to the lights and him. Sometimes it’s a drunk intern stumbling in late, leaning against the revolving door before it gives way. Sometimes the janitor, Godwin, who always nods with most of his upper body so low you’d mistake it for a bow. Tonight, though, it’s nothing. Just the usual blinking red dot of the cameras. Just him and the whining heater beside his desk that complains with a high-pitched whine, a kind of noise you stop noticing until silence makes you notice it again. His coffee sits on the edge of the desk, the paper cup gone soggy from the steam. He rubs his eyes and takes another sip of the coffee when the line appears:

“Baba, ka manta da ni?”

It flickers in white on Camera 3, left side of the monitor. Like a subtitle, or an error message, and he leans forward.

He thinks it’s a glitch. Just static or maybe a message from the security software, badly translated. He even gives a little laugh, a short, nervous sound in his throat. “Wetin be this one?” and clacks at the keyboard twice, trying to clear it.

The letters don’t vanish right away. They stay, pale among the grainy grey of the empty lobby.

It takes him a second, but then he recognises it – Hausa. The message is in Hausa.

“Daddy, did you forget me?”

The heater clicks loudly in the silence, and his hand shakes a little on the coffee cup.

For a moment, Musa just stares. The message lingers for ten seconds, maybe more, before dissolving back into the nothing of the lobby feed. The blinking red dot resumes its usual rhythm, like nothing had happened.

He doesn’t mention the message to Godwin or to his wife on the evening call. Not even to the group chat with the other guards, or the group chat from church. Instead, he deletes the clip.

Camera 3. 03:17 a.m.

He right-clicks and selects Clear Log. The software asks: Are you sure? He doesn’t hesitate. Yes.

***

The next night passes quietly, as if the building itself tries to move on from the previous glitch. Musa almost convinces himself that he imagined it. He drinks his coffee, listens to the heater whine, and scrolls idly on his phone between patrol checks. Nothing happens. The monitors blink their steady, boring red. No messages, just more footsteps and foggy glass.

But the night after that, around 2:48 a.m., it comes back.

The air is sharper, having the kind of cold that seeps through spaces in the glass and presses against his skin even inside the booth. He taps at his thermos, debating whether the last swallow of coffee will be worth how little it’s gone.

“Baba, I still have the picture. You wore your uniform that day.”

This time, it shows on Camera 5 – the elevator. Nobody’s inside, its fluorescent light showering over dull steel walls of the interior, accompanied by just a cacophony of elevator music and the soft clanking of machinery. But this message doesn’t flash, like the first one. It’s still on the screen now, and he doesn’t delete it right away.

He leans back, stares wordlessly at the monitor like the words might change if he leaves them alone. His first thought is again? His second is that it looks too deliberate. Not a system hiccup. Not random noise. His coffee is now cold, and the building is now still.

He checks the footage before and after, but there’s nobody near the control room, no system update, no intruder or hacker alert, nothing. The software hasn’t changed in two years, and when he tries to think someone may be playing a game with him, he recalls none of the tenants speak Hausa, and he doesn’t sleep when his shift ends.

Her name is Hauwa, his daughter, and she used to say his full name with so much seriousness that his wife would laugh. Baba Musa, like his mother did when he got into trouble, but Hauwa hasn’t called him that in years.

She was ten when he left for Belgium. Now, she should be… what? Fourteen? Almost fifteen?

He knows her birthday, obviously, he does. But the years after leaving make dates feel off, like they don’t really have much value anymore.

She used to love it when he placed her on his shoulders. Used to hate tomatoes. Used to send voice notes through her mother’s phone with riddles that she got from class and didn’t care if she was saying them correctly or not. She used to do lots of things.

He sends money now, does it every month. His wife says she’s fine and doing well. But Hauwa hasn’t spoken to him directly in two years – it’s been that long since the argument.

“I don’t even remember what your voice sounds like,” she said. Then he told her to stop talking like that, and she didn’t, at all, since then.

He doesn’t tell his wife about the messages because he knows she’ll call the pastor. Or worse, she’ll ask him more questions than he knows what to do with.

***

It’s Sunday when the third message arrives – his day off. Musa tells himself he won’t touch the system, won’t even think about the cameras. He goes through the motions of rest – goes to the store to get things for breakfast, folds laundry, lets a football match play on the TV, though he isn’t following the score. But the hours drag, heavy and uneven, and by evening he finds himself staring at his tablet, half out of boredom, half out of expectation. By midnight, he caves, logging in remotely, and scrolls past the feeds one by one. Empty lobby. Empty corridors. The elevator is sleeping on the ground floor. For a long time, nothing happens – the cameras are all still. Camera 2 is frozen for a second. Until it comes again:

“You didn’t even look back when I waved.”

His grip on the tablet becomes lighter, and he wonders if he’s dreaming. For a moment, he wants to drop it. But he doesn’t. He watches the message fade, then plays it again. Same words. Same timing.

He doesn’t remember anyone waving, but he does remember being late and keeping the church bus waiting for a while. He remembers Hauwa held in her mother’s arms. Her head against her mother’s shoulder, her small hand tucked between them. He remembers kissing her cheek – no, did he? Or had he only thought of it? Did he only pat her head? He isn’t sure anymore. He’s sure he doesn’t remember her waving.

Maybe she waved, and he missed it. Or maybe he wanted to forget so much and got his wish granted. The guilt seeps in, and he can’t tell if the weight in his chest is from forgetting or from remembering.

He finally prints a screenshot of one of the messages. He folds the paper and carries it with him, tucked inside his jacket pocket like a note. And it feels like it’s alive, heavy and restless in the pocket against his chest. But for the three nights it stays with him, never meeting the eyes of another, He takes it with him everywhere – work, the small African food stall where he buys okra, even to bed. Nothing happens for those nights.

***

On night number four, the message doesn’t come through a camera at all. This time it comes through the building intercom.

At 3:00 a.m. on the dot, the system cracks to life, and he thinks it’s a tenant – maybe someone locked out or expecting a delivery, wouldn’t be the first time it happened. He starts to wonder why they don’t just get some sleep as he picks up the receiver with more static filling the line. He taps the button again, “Hello?” Nothing still, but then comes a voice, soft, young. Hers.

“I want a new photo, Baba. This one is old.” He still holds it to his ear for a second, and calmly, he drops the receiver.

The photo.

He knows exactly which one she means – Hauwa is in her Sunday dress, standing in the yard, his arm resting on her shoulder. She was eight then. He had carried that photo tucked in his wallet until the edges curled. When the leather split, he tucked it away in a folder, telling himself he’d replace it. He never did, hadn’t remembered to, and it’s the only photo of her that he still has. Now, she said she wanted a new one.

That night, Musa doesn’t finish his shift properly. He moves through it like a wraith, checking the monitors halfheartedly, and drinks coffee without tasting it. Only when the sun rises and Godwin comes to relieve him, does he start to pay attention again, but he still leaves without a word.

At home, he spreads old suitcases open on the floor. Out spill shirts he no longer wears, a belt with a broken buckle, and an old wristwatch with a dead battery. He finds the photo tucked deep inside a folder, rubs across her smile, and straightens out the creases at the edges.

He holds it long enough for his hands to shake. Then he slips it back, this time into his shirt pocket – close to the note, close to his heart.

***

From the next night, he starts bringing offerings, only he doesn’t call them that, at least not at first.

That word doesn’t come until later. He tells himself they’re just… gestures. Small things that might matter get left by him in the camera rooms after hours. A biscuit from his lunchbox. His old wristwatch. A tiny plastic hair bead he found at the bottom of the suitcase, and he remembers that Hauwa used to scatter them across the tiles when she used them to braid her dolls.

He never mentions her name, whether aloud or in writing, but every time he leaves something, the messages stop, if only for a while.

Then one night, he arrives for his shift to find the first offering returned – the biscuit. It’s still wrapped and sits pretty on his desk chair, too balanced. He asks Godwin if anyone had entered the office before, but the latter shakes his head. Then, on the next shift, he finds the old wristwatch, also returned. When the monitors start to flicker again in the shift after that, he places his wristwatch on the desk. Not the broken one that got returned earlier, but the one he still wears.

The monitors hold steady through the night. No messages, nor voices.

When he clocks in the following evening, the watch is gone.

He checks everywhere – the drawer, the chair, the floor. Nothing. Godwin hasn’t been near the desk. The logs show no entry.

***

Hauwa extends her visits to his dreams that night.

But she’s not the age she was when he left. She’s taller, thinner. Her voice is deeper, but her eyes are the same.

In the dream, she’s wearing his old favourite native shirt, he wore it a lot of the time on their Wednesday walks, and she’s sitting in a lobby on a cold marble bench. Her feet stretch out like they’re too long to rest properly, and in her hands she holds the watch, turning it over and over in her hands.

“I didn’t forget,” she says.

Musa tries to reach her, but she fades before his hand gets close.

He wakes with the ticking still in his ears and remembers the watch is gone.

***

The morning after, Musa sits on the edge of his bed longer than usual. The curtains are thin, the light outside grey, but he doesn’t open them. Over their bi-daily video call, his wife asks if he’s feeling unwell, and he shakes his head. He doesn’t tell her that in his dream, Hauwa had sat in a lobby that wasn’t theirs, wearing his folded native shirt, her feet swinging like a child’s, but her voice steady and older.

When he’s awake, he starts to wonder if she’s… Gone?

But when he does bring her up, asking about how she’s faring and if she’s still being stingy with her time. His wife still sends him reports of her schooling, and in return asks if he’s any closer to saving up money to make the trip back, even for the holidays, and he reminds her that the building is nice but the pay is not, he however says he’ll make sure to pull in more shifts to see if it will make it possible.

Finally, he drags himself up and puts himself together enough to leave the apartment, but he still feels groggy and raw as he steps out. When he looks at the glass of a window to make small adjustments to his appearance, he sees his reflection, blurred and tired, but for an instant, he swears there’s another face behind his shoulder. A girl. He turns, and nobody’s there.

Later, his wife texts him with a picture of Hauwa’s last school report; all neat columns and careful grades. He stares at it until the phone dims. He should feel proud. He should feel relief. Instead, he thinks of the girl in the lobby. Taller, thinner. Sadder. That girl feels more real than the one in the report.

The hours drag. The heater hums, the monitors flicker, and Musa forces himself to stay still, unsure of what to do next. He doesn’t leave any offering this time. He just watches and waits.

But nothing comes – no messages, no voices, no return of what he saw in the dream.

And yet he feels her close, closer than any screen could show.

One night, there’s a new message, “You are the only person who still remembers me properly.”

This is the longest it stays. It lingers on Camera 1, the one he almost never checks, the one pointed at the side alley where no one walks.

He whispers, “Are you still here?” to no one. “Like, here here?”

He wonders if it even qualifies as a question. But it’s the closest to clarity he can ask for, and this time, there’s silence. No glitch. No intercom. Not a dream. Just a piece of paper he finds on his desk one Monday. Folded in half beside his coffee mug. He checks the cameras, the door logs, the night register. No one else signed in. No footage shows it being placed.

His name is on the front. Not “Musa,” not “Baba.” Just his full name. In the handwriting she used before she started trying to change it.

There’s only one sentence, “Umma wanted you to come back before you knew.”

He folds the paper back, leans back in his chair and wonders why he wasn’t told sooner. His mind races, but he sits forward slowly before he carefully pulls out his phone and tries to Skype his wife.

“Umma?” His voice is rough.

“Good evening, Baba? Is everything all right with you?” Her voice glides through his ears, but he barely hears them – it’s like his head is in water, hearing someone say things from the surface.

“When were you going to tell me?” His words stumble out.

There’s a pause. Then, her voice wavers and cracks. “I… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Baba, I thought it would be easier for you… for you to keep working… to stay focused until you come back.”

He wanted to tell her Hauwa didn’t make it easier to stay focused, “How long?”

“Since last month,” she says. “We thought… maybe Christmas. That’s why I wanted you back. I’ve been holding them back, waiting for you.”

“But the school reports…” he starts, “You even sent me one yesterday.”

He hears her gasp and barely whisper, “From last session.” He didn’t know you could hear tears before today. And wondered why he never bothered to check the dates on them.

Musa doesn’t say anything – there’s nothing more to ask. So after a soft “I’ll call you back,” he hangs up without giving her a chance to respond.

He looks at the biscuit still on the desk, thinks of the watch Hauwa took, and slowly puts the folded paper in his wallet, where the photo and the note now stay.

The monitors only offer him answers through a blurred reflection in the glass, no longer through hazy static feed. For the briefest moment, he sees her; taller, thinner, with eyes the same as in the dreamscape; she’s just behind him. A blink, and she’s gone. He swallows, and a single tear runs down his cheek.