I lost my phone in Lagos traffic on a Tuesday I still can’t explain properly till today.

It started like a normal day. I had squeezed myself into a bus heading through the usual Lagos crawl—somewhere between Oshodi and Mile 2. You know that kind of traffic where nobody is moving, but somehow everyone is still stressed?

I was standing by the door, one hand on the rail, the other holding my phone. I was just scrolling—probably Twitter or WhatsApp, pretending I had control of my life. Outside, conductors were shouting, danfos were squeezing lanes that didn’t exist, and everyone had that “I just want to get home” face.

Then it happened.

The bus hit one of those sudden jerks—no warning, just Lagos doing Lagos things. I shifted my weight to balance myself, and in that split second, my hand loosened. I didn’t even feel it properly. No dramatic “oh no!” moment. Just a small gap in my grip… and my phone was gone.

At first, I thought it was still in my pocket. I even tapped myself like, “relax, it’s there.” But something felt off. I checked again. Nothing.

That’s when the real panic started.

I looked down—through the open bus door—and all I could see was the road behind us. Cars were still moving. My brain was trying to process it like a slow computer: Did it fall? Did someone pick it? Did I imagine it?

I shouted “stop!” but in Lagos traffic, shouting is just emotional exercise. Nobody heard me. The bus didn’t even care. It just kept rolling forward like nothing personal had happened.

I asked the next passenger if they saw anything. He just looked at me with that tired Lagos expression like, “my brother, I didn’t come here to inherit your problem.”

For the rest of the ride, I wasn’t even in the bus anymore mentally. I was replaying everything—lock screen, last app I opened, whether I had a case on it (I didn’t), whether it had already cracked into pieces somewhere between Ojota and nowhere.

When I finally got down, I tried calling it from a friend’s phone.

It rang once.

Then it went off.

That was the moment I accepted reality.

Lagos traffic didn’t just take my time that day. It took my phone too.

And the worst part? The city moved on like nothing happened.