By the fifth morning, I realized something strange.
The city had started noticing him too.
6:40 a.m.
The mandazi seller nodded at him when she arrived. A boda rider slowed down near the bus stop like he expected the old man to say something. Even one of the matatu conductors greeted him casually.
“Morning, mzee.”
The man simply raised his hand in response.
Quiet acknowledgment. Nothing more.
When I reached the bus stop, he was watching the street again—the same direction he always faced.
“You see?” he said as I approached.
“People are starting to think I work here.”
I laughed.
“Maybe you do.”
He smiled.
For the first time since we started talking, he seemed lighter that morning. Like the weight he carried had shifted slightly.
We stood there watching the morning traffic.
Then he suddenly asked me something unexpected.
“Why do you come here?”
The question caught me off guard.
“I guess… curiosity,” I admitted.
He nodded thoughtfully.
“That’s how stories begin.”
I looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
He adjusted the strap of his old bag and stared down the road again.
“Most people pass through life too fast to notice anything,” he said. “But once in a while, someone stops. They look closer. They ask questions.”
He glanced at me briefly.
“And suddenly a moment becomes a story.”
For a moment I didn’t respond.
Then I asked him something I hadn’t thought to ask before.
“What did Daniel want to become?”
The old man smiled again, this time wider.
“A storyteller.”
I blinked.
“Really?”
He nodded.
“He used to say the world is full of stories that nobody bothers to write down.”
The irony hung quietly between us.
A matatu sped past, music blasting from its speakers.
The man watched it disappear down the road.
“You know,” he said slowly, “I think he would like that someone finally stopped to listen.”
The morning traffic was now heavier. Office workers hurried by. The mandazi seller shouted prices to customers.
Life moving forward like it always does.
Then, as the clock approached 7:00 a.m., the man reached into his old bag.
He pulled out something small.
A notebook.
Its edges were worn, the pages slightly curled with age.
He handed it to me.
“Daniel’s,” he said.
I looked at it carefully.
“Why are you giving it to me?”
The old man looked down the road one more time.
Then he answered calmly.
“Because someone has to keep telling the stories.”
At exactly 7:00 a.m., he checked his watch again.
But this time when he walked away…
He left something behind.