This article is part of the FA special series Everywhere Walls, Borders, Prisons.

Editors’ Note: Breaking from our customary critical journalistic approach, Failed Architecture is incorporating speculative writing into some of our recently published pieces. This new endeavour seeks to deepen our comprehension of spatial politics and spatial practices by introducing alternative forms of writing and thinking. Embracing speculative writing presents an opportunity to surpass traditional and hegemonic forms of discourse, opening doors to alternative perspectives, futures and imaginative explorations of our present. Moreover, it enables us to envision different approaches to addressing the current poly-crisis. We hope that this new exploration sparks new dialogues with our readers and contributors.

A high-rise of greying flats, littered with empty balconies, greeted me the moment my taxi parked on the side of the interlocked road. It was a rainy July afternoon deep inside Lekki Phase One, so the street smelled heavily of damp sewage. There were dozens of people on my street, more than I ever saw, who were dragging suitcases and bags across the road, moving with an aimlessness I didn’t understand. 

I came out of my tiny electric taxi and closed my eyes, attempting not to think about the state of my life. I hadn’t been to the apartment complex in what felt like forever. It had been a period of my life which stretched out in blurs of extreme euphoria followed by routine psych evaluations. But it had only been two weeks. Two weeks of mental probing, two weeks of being made to feel it was my fault, two weeks of the fear of nobody believing me.

The iron stairs creaked under my steps as I walked to the third floor of the building. Each apartment door was black, heavy, consisting of peepholes I knew my neighbors watched people through.  As I walked now, there was a heaviness in my chest that bloomed and expanded. I ran up the remaining steps until I was on the third floor and face to face with my apartment.

Before I left, before my best friend had come to pick me up that afternoon, two weeks ago, when I crashed my car, and it felt like all of Lagos staring at me,  this one-bedroom studio had been my place of solace. I had spent most of my savings painting over the water-soaked yellow walls, rewiring lights of dead fluorescent bulbs, and turning the meagre kitchen space I had into a place I could cook in. The only spacious spot was my living room. It was there, on my brown sofa, that I relaxed, when Lagos’ hustle and noise got too overstimulating.

I swiped my keycard, and nothing happened. The handle didn’t flash green. I tried again. Swiped harder. Even more nothing. I banged, as though that would somehow force the door open, but it only made me hear music blasting behind it. Why was there music playing?

No one should be in my room. No one could be in my room. Not only had I taken the keycard, no one in the complex knew I’d been gone. I tried once more, twisting at the door handle, but the music grew louder, drowning me out.

Drops of sweat ran down my back. I called my landlord. Straight to voicemail. I called again until he picked up.

“Oh.” He said, when I voiced my problem. The landlord’s voice was deep and gravelly. It made him feel older.

He was quiet on the line. “You’re back.”

My voice felt tight. “From work, yes. We got out early today. Why is there someone inside my place?”

He cleared his throat. “No one at the complex has seen you in two weeks.”

I struggled to keep the phone within my grasp. “That’s not true. I’ve been around.”

“The neighbors. They said you ran mad. That’s why you left.”

“I don’t know what they’re on about.”

He sent a video. I couldn’t bring myself to watch it.  I didn’t know how he’d gotten it, but I knew it was from that day, two weeks ago. It had happened a few blocks away from the apartment complex. I had crashed my car into a streetlight because I’d been speeding during a manic episode. I was in between medications, and I didn’t register how fast I’d been going, how fast my life was going. Many people had gathered at the scene, asking what happened, and I hadn’t thought about who might have been there. What they could have said about me, in a moment where I had been vulnerable.

“The neighbors, they said a friend came. One of them heard from him that you were going for treatment, since you’d been acting strange.”

“I went to get treated for the accident, yes. And I left my house for a bit, but what does that have to do with anything? There’s someone in my apartment.”

“They’re allowed to be there.”

I held on to the wall for support. “What?”

“They’re allowed to be there. Did you read your tenancy agreement? Clause 6. All tenants must inform the landlord if they will be absent from the property for more than a week. The landlord may determine all tenancy agreements  if the landlord considers the tenant meets one of the conditions: worsening drug use, prostitution, mental deterioration—”

Every word he said made my head hurt. “Y-you can’t evict me without notice. That’s illegal.”

His voice was flat on the line. “You’re not getting evicted. You just don’t have exclusive possession anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Exclusive possession. It means I’ve revoked your right to be in your apartment all the time. The new tenant has access to your place during the day, excluding weekends. You’ll be able to access your apartment once it’s 5pm, once you get back from work.”

My head spun, aching against my skull. I had heard from friends of friends of cousins of coworkers, about people none of us ever knew, whose landlords had removed exclusive possession from their tenancies. I scanned the internet, trying to see what the law said about it, but the results were all vague. Due to a gap in the 2030s Lagos housing regulations, landlords had wider discretion to modify housing arrangements. The matter was open to interpretation. As long as it was in the contract, it could be done.

I hadn’t known any of this when I signed the contract, when I had moved in.

I started panicking. What would I do if I had an emergency? If I lost my job? If work got so difficult and I had no place to run to when I needed an afternoon off, when I needed a breather? No friends could host me.There was no place in the city where I wouldn’t be harassed or fined. No place was free.

“I’m going to court.”

“Nobody is stopping you.”

“You can’t make decisions because you heard something about me from someone else. You can’t do that.”

“It doesn’t matter where you were.” His voice was monotone. “Deterioration is determined at my discretion.”

The hallway seemed smaller in my vision; the peepholes got bigger. Every eye in the complex felt like it was on me, staring me down from their doors. I desperately needed to get some air. But everything felt like it was crashing around me with the force of an earthquake, and I couldn’t stop it.

“I just went to get some support.”

Silence. He had cut the call.