Five Minutes in the Favela

Tobi and Cambiaso moved like shadows through the alleyways of the favela, the evening sun bleeding orange over the rusted rooftops. The call had been made. Gucci was waiting.

They found him near the old water tank, kicking pebbles and scrolling through his cracked phone. He barely looked up.

“What’s good?” Gucci said.

Tobi didn’t answer. He just stepped forward and grabbed Gucci by the collar. Cambiaso hung back, arms crossed, silent.

Gucci shoved him off. “You mad or something?”

Tobi swung. Gucci blocked. They locked up — two skinny kids wrapped in rage, pride, and heat. Dust rose around their feet like smoke from a fire. For a second, it looked even. But then Tobi twisted, got behind him, and locked his arms around Gucci’s neck.

The struggle slowed. Gucci’s kicks turned to taps, then tremors. His fingers clawed at Tobi’s forearm, but Tobi just clenched tighter. Five minutes passed like a lifetime. Then nothing.

Gucci’s body sagged. Limp.

Tobi let him drop like trash. No ceremony.

“You see that?” he spat, panting. “Little bitch couldn’t hang.”

He kicked the corpse once. Then again. Called him names. Spit on him.

Cambiaso looked away.

They didn’t run. They just walked off like it was any other afternoon.

Half an hour later, Tobi lit a cigarette and sat on the low wall by the market slope. That’s when he saw her.

A woman climbing the hill, struggling under the weight of grocery bags, one in each hand. Her face was wet — not with sweat. She wasn’t wailing. She was quiet. Broken. Crying like it was something she’d forgotten how to stop doing.

It was Gucci’s mother.

Tobi froze. The smoke from his cigarette drifted past his eyes like a veil, but he saw her clear. Her back hunched under the load. Her feet dragging on the concrete. Her soul worn thin.

She passed him without a glance.

He didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Suddenly, five minutes felt like a life sentence.

Tobi stayed on the wall long after she was gone, staring down the street like he was waiting for someone else to show up and forgive him.

Cambiaso came back, hands in his hoodie, jaw tight.

“You good?”

Tobi didn’t answer.

“You said he deserved it,” Cambiaso added, half-hearted. “Didn’t you?”

The silence between them cracked louder than gunfire.

Tobi flicked the cigarette away and stood. “Let’s go.”

They walked through the market as the stalls were shutting down. The smell of old fish and frying oil clung to the air. Music blared somewhere uphill — someone’s cousin celebrating something no one else cared about.

Tobi’s shoulders felt heavy. Like he was still carrying Gucci on his back.

Later that night, he lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The fan above him spun slow and squeaky, like it couldn’t keep up with the heat — or the thoughts.

He remembered Gucci laughing at a joke in school. Dumb one, too. Something about a math teacher with one eye and two wives.

He remembered them both stealing mangoes from that crooked tree behind the church. Gucci had slipped once, fell right into a patch of thorns. Bled like a stuck pig. Tobi had laughed, but helped him up.

They weren’t always enemies.

But the favela don’t care about “before.” Just who you are today — and who you take out tomorrow.

A knock came around midnight.

His mom opened the door. There were voices. Soft ones.

Then a scream.

Tobi sat up. His heart sank before his feet hit the floor.

He opened the door to see two cops standing in the living room. One held a plastic bag with Tobi’s bloodstained shirt inside.

They didn’t even cuff him.

Didn’t have to.

Holding Cell. 3:12 AM.

The walls were piss-yellow and sweating. Fluorescent lights hummed above like dying insects. Tobi sat alone on a steel bench, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it might open up and swallow him.

No one said a word for hours.

When the cop finally came back, he didn’t bother with questions. Just handed Tobi a water bottle and sat across from him.

“You killed a boy with your hands,” he said, voice low. “Choked him like he was nothing.”

Tobi didn’t flinch. Didn’t nod. Just blinked.

“You got anything to say?”

Tobi leaned back. “He would’ve done the same.”

The cop shook his head slowly. “You sure?”

Silence.

Morning. Courthouse.

His mom cried the whole time, whispering prayers into her sleeves. Cambiaso wasn’t there. No one from school. No one from the block. Only Gucci’s mother, sitting two rows behind, face carved from grief. She didn’t cry anymore. She just stared.

Like she was trying to remember Tobi’s face for later.

Like she planned to haunt him with it.

Tobi didn’t look back.

Two Months Later. Juvenile Detention.

The food was grey. The walls were grey. The days ran into each other like dirty water.

Tobi didn’t talk much. Fought twice. Won once.

But the nights were the worst. Nights were long.

He’d dream of Gucci gasping under his arm, eyes wide and wild, hands clawing like they still believed he’d let go.

Then he’d wake up sweating, heart racing, fists clenched so tight they shook.

One night, he stood at the window of the cell, bars in front of his face like fingers gripping his soul.

He thought of Gucci’s mother on that hill.

He thought of his own.

He thought maybe this place wasn’t hell.

Maybe hell was knowing.

Next day.

Tobi asked for a pencil.

He didn’t know what he was gonna write. A letter? A confession? A name?

Didn’t matter.

He just wanted to start.

Five Minutes in the Favela (Final Act)

Six months later.

The streets forgot Tobi quick.

Another name painted on the wall. Another whisper in the alleyways. Boys still died, and bullets still flew, and Gucci’s mother still walked that same hill alone.

But someone else hadn’t forgotten.

Mateus.

Tobi’s little brother.

Born with twisted legs, trapped in a battered wheelchair since he was five.

But his mind? Razor sharp. His hands? Steady. His heart? Black with silence.

He’d watched everything.

The murder. The arrest. The trial. The tears.

And in that silence, something grew.

Cambiaso thought it was safe now. The streets had moved on.

He still posted up near the courts, still wore Gucci’s chain, the one he took off the body when Tobi wasn’t looking. He wore it like a trophy.

Mateus saw it once. Never said a word.

He just started watching.

Waiting.

The setup came on a humid Friday night.

Mateus had messaged Cambiaso through a burner.

Said he had something to sell.

Said it was important.

Said he wanted revenge too.

Said, “Let’s meet where it happened.”

Cambiaso came. Alone. Arrogant.

He found Mateus waiting near the old water tank, chair still, eyes calm.

“You really think you got something for me, cripple?” Cambiaso laughed, stepping closer. “You lucky I even showed up.”

Mateus didn’t flinch.

He just smiled. Calm. Cold.

“You forgot something,” he said.

“What?”

“That I used to walk.”

Cambiaso frowned. “What’s that got to do — ”

That’s when Mateus moved.

From the side pouch of the wheelchair, a wire flashed.

A garrote.

Mateus kicked the brake, sprang forward — stood — his legs shaking but holding just long enough. He leapt onto Cambiaso’s back with the fury of a ghost. The wire wrapped around Cambiaso’s neck before he could scream.

They collapsed into the dirt. Cambiaso kicked, bucked, clawed at the wire, at the air, at God.

But Mateus didn’t let go.

The wire bit deep.

Cambiaso’s hands slowed. Twitched.

Stopped.

Mateus knelt there for a moment, breathing heavy.

Then he sat back in the chair.

And rolled away.

Later.

No one spoke his name.

No one claimed the body.

No one saw a thing.

In the favela, revenge doesn’t scream.

It whispers.

Like wire cutting through breath.