(Village Market, Western Gold Coast – April 1952)
The square behind the palm‑frond stalls smelled of roasted plantain, goat tallow, and the soggy red earth that always hugged the first true sunrise of the wet season. At its edge, five‑year‑old Malik Obeng stood on a wooden crate, chin level with the makeshift tabletop where his invention awaited inspection. Twenty‑three cedar boxes, each topped by a panel of reclaimed window glass painted obsidian on the underside, were arrayed like disciplined soldiers. Inside, shallow basins waited to swallow brackish well water and return it, almost magically, as pure condensate. Malik called them Sun‑Water Boxes, but the village would only believe in miracles if they came from familiar mouths. So, beside him, adjusting the sleeves of an ironed calico shirt, stood Papa Obeng—tall, good‑humored, and outwardly the mastermind of the device.
Malik's plan for the morning hinged on optics as much as optics hinged on sunlight. Cortana had spelled it out the previous night, her azure form flickering on the rooftop: "Adults discount information from children. A respected adult proxy accelerates trust curves by forty‑two percent." Malik had nodded, sandaled feet dangling over the parapet. Papa had agreed—somewhat bewildered, wholly supportive—to play front‑man for the stall. His only instruction from the boy was simple: smile, repeat the rehearsed pitch, and answer technical questions by gesturing to a chalkboard diagram Malik would supply. Any hard enquiries were to earn the line: "My son will demonstrate."
At first light the pair arrived, Papa balancing the boxes on a handcart, Malik carrying the folding table, and Cortana silent in a prism tucked beneath the boy's shirt. He felt her gentle haptic pulse—one, two, three—indicating solar lux rising above operational threshold. The village of Nyaneyem was already stirring: women slapping cassava dough, goats bleating for stale bread, fishermen repairing nets. An untested invention from a child could quickly become gossip fodder, but an entirely new way to drink clean water could become legend. Malik intended the latter.
Papa Obeng (booming voice): "Good people, gather round! Sun does the boiling—no fire, no charcoal!"
Villager Woman: "Boiling? Without flame? Hah!"
Skepticism floated like morning mist. Malik watched his father's nerves twitch when a portly cocoa middleman scoffed aloud. The boy reached for the chalkboard, sketched a radiant sun, a black interior, droplets condensing on glass. The crowd leaned closer—not yet convinced, but curious. An old midwife squared her shoulders, a challenge in her eyes: Show me.
Malik unclipped the lid of the first unit, poured in milky well water, and angled the box so sunlight poured through the glass like a silent command. He used a spindly finger to mark time on the tabletop—counting seconds to keep his nerves from galloping. During this span Cortana whispered calculations only he could hear: "Surface temp climbing… vapor point in forty seconds… drip formation in sixty‑three…"
At the sixty‑sixth second, the first clear droplet snaked down the pane, kissed the funnel lip, and slipped through the rubber tube into a clay cup. Gasps rose. The midwife sipped, rolled the water in her mouth, swallowed. "Sweet as morning rain," she declared, thrusting a thumb skyward. The mood flipped like a tossed coin.
Orders came in a flood. Malik tallied thumbprint signatures beside each of his neat marks—one box per family, payment in cocoa pods, millet, and, crucially, sterling shillings. Papa handled the adult chatter—price haggling, promised delivery times—while Malik's small hands calculated margins in chalk dust. He kept his voice spare, authoritative only when pressed about build time or material sourcing. Every so often Papa would beam with fatherly pride, tousle Malik's woolly hair, and wink at disbelieving onlookers: "You see? I taught the boy well." The fiction cost nothing and bought credibility by the bushel.
By noon all twenty‑three boxes were spoken for. Papa packed the display table while Malik counted the coins beneath a straw hat: £23 in deposits, several baskets of cassava chips, two strings of dried tilapia, and promises for the remaining balances upon delivery. He noted the numbers in his ledger, subtracting five shillings per box for timber, nails, paint, and scavenged glass. Overhead, Cortana flashed confirmation in faint blue text visible only to him: "Projected net: £13 shillings per unit. Target margin met."