Not All “Dreams” Should Come True

Ada first becomes aware of the noise before she understands what it means. It arrives in layers, voices crossing each other, horns blazing with the impatience of people who have places to be, engines revving too close for comfort, until it feels like the world has leaned in, and pressing itself into her personal space. In this moment, she keeps walking, even as the familiar sense that something is wrong settles low in her stomach.

Her phone vibrates in her hand.

She hesitates to look at it as some part of her already knows what that notification means. When she finally glances down, the notification is glowing calmly on her screen.

Debit alert.

It is not plenty  money o, just 5k, the one she sent for Sarah’s baby contribution. But it is the “Unbudgetedness” of this debit that annoys her.

Ada swipes the alert away and tells herself she will reorganize her budget when she gets home, that now is not the time to spiral, but before the thought fully settles, the phone vibrates again. Then again. Three alerts in quick succession… “Why do these alerts even come 2 hours after a transaction has been made? Omo!” She had just used POS to send 10k to her niece, another 10k for her body cream, which she did not know has increased from 5k, ALL UNPLANNED!

She slows down and eventually stops, standing still while people brush past her with muttered apologies or none at all. When she opens her banking app, the loading circle spins longer than usual. When it finally opens and she looks at her account balance and she felt a tight knot in her chest.

“Ada!”

She looks up to see her cousin waving from across the road, already walking toward her, showcasing her white perfect dentition. “They’ve sent the aso-ebi details,” she says, holding up her phone. “We’re paying today so we don’t hear story later.”

Ada smiles because that is what she has been taught to do, because joy is expected of her in moments like this, and because explaining the tension tightening her chest would take more energy than she has. Her phone vibrates again, but she doesn’t check it this time.

Her mother’s name flashes across the screen moments later. Missed call. Then a message follows almost immediately: Kpoom m mgbe i nwere ike. (Call me when you can.)

Ada exhales slowly. She steps onto the pavement and opens her bag, suddenly needing to see everything laid out in front of her. In her notebook, her budget stares back at her, neat blue ink forming categories she had once felt proud of. Rent. Food. Transport. Savings. Miscellaneous.

She feels lost and confused, she was really rooting for 2026 to be that year where she finally gets her financial act together. “Chukwu biko zienu” she mutters in exhaustion.

Somewhere somehow, she hears the faint cry of her Nephew… how could that be, he is supposed to be at home?

Her eyes pop open…

Breath caught in her throat… She hears Nnamdi’s (her Nephew) cry dying down.

For a moment, she doesn’t move. Her eyes were just scanning her environment and she realizes she was on her bed, in her room, ceiling fan humming steadily above her, morning light filtering in through the curtains with a gentleness that feels almost apologetic.

It was all a dream

Her phone is right beside her and she grabs it with the urgency of a doctor responding to a red alert.

When she unlocks it and opens Open Space, everything is there, exactly as it should be. Her money is separated cleanly, each part sitting in its own place. Daily spending where it belongs. Bills accounted for. Savings untouched. Nothing overlapping. Nothing bleeding into something else.

She lets out a sigh of relief, and remembers how excited she had been setting it up, how good it felt to hand over the remembering and organising to something else.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, Ada kept wondering if it was the 4 wraps of fufu that was responsible such a chaotic dream, regardless, that dream would never come true with Open Space’s Automated Budgeting feature.