A Name on the List

The first thing I checked was the date. The second was the name on the list beside my bed. In 2026 I had kept the names of people I wished I had called sooner. Now the paper was an ordinary delivery schedule, my phone said May 2016, and the man reflected in its dark screen was twenty-six instead of thirty-six. I was back in Juba with twenty-four hundred dollars saved, an employer who called me boy and a whole decade I could finally stop regretting.

My name was Deng. I had spent the lost years coordinating parts deliveries across the region, good at rescuing other people’s margins and poor at owning anything beyond my suitcase. I remembered the fighting that would come to Juba in July. The memory made me cold despite the heat. I could not order a country into a different future. I could start making civilian plans early, avoid a debt that would trap my family and stop telling myself that I would telephone people tomorrow.

I called Adut first. She was twenty-four and ran a small shop where I had once bought almost everything on credit except courage. In my old life I had missed a supplier’s visit, left her waiting for stock and spent months apologizing. This time I checked the stock before promising it and arranged a qualified delivery that actually arrived. Adut watched the boxes enter her shop and asked whether somebody had replaced the man who usually brought explanations. I told her I had begun an experiment in arriving before the complaint.

The work revealed a better opportunity than selling whatever happened to be cheap. Private shops, workshops and small operators needed suitable parts, not three wrong pieces delivered quickly. Ajak understood that already. She was twenty-seven, worked in procurement and could read a packing list as though it were a confession. I asked her to help build a small supply business. She asked whether I wanted a partner or a woman who would make the man at the front look organized. I said partner. She said I would have to learn to let her answer that question through the work.

Our first order was six thousand dollars. Three thousand came as a deposit. Suitable parts, actual freight and all the agreed outside costs totaled forty-eight hundred. With the deposit and my savings, we could pay the cost and still have six hundred before the final payment. When the remaining three thousand arrived, the business held thirty-six hundred: the original capital plus twelve hundred profit from our founding work. I took Ajak to lunch and watched her insist that we eat before I described the next ten orders. She said ambition was less attractive when it interrupted chewing.

My old employer, Rex, heard what I had done. He offered me a little more salary to bring the customer back to him. When I declined, he laughed and asked whether a boy with one delivery intended to become a transport king. I looked at his clean desk, the place where I had once waited for praise, and felt the delicious relief of no longer needing to remain in front of it. I said I intended to finish a second delivery. Rex told me to remember his offer when the first invoice went unpaid. It had already been paid.

Mary, twenty-eight, was a nurse who had known me long enough to recognize worry beneath a new shirt. We met at a small restaurant after her shift. She asked why I was suddenly making practical plans for my mother to visit relatives away from the city. I explained the concerns I could sensibly discuss and urged her to consider her own circumstances and responsible local guidance. Mary did not want a man choosing her life for her. She wanted somebody who would answer a question honestly instead of looking heroic. I admitted I was frightened. She took my hand, and the admission felt less like defeat than I expected.

Adut invited me to supper after the next delivery. She wore a green dress and the expression of a woman deciding whether to make me nervous for sport. I told her she looked beautiful. She said she had been waiting years for me to notice before she had to ask. We ate, laughed and ended up standing close at the door long after the practical reason to leave had passed. When she kissed me, I forgot the names on the list for a moment. Then I remembered why I wanted them all to become invitations instead of regrets.