On that fateful evening, I sat down at CEC quadrangle and the moment I lifted a bottle of beer to my mouth, I couldn’t help but noticed a boy and a girl holding hands in a lovey-dovey way. As I was enjoying my bottle of chilled Hero alone looking rather aloof and lost; it was clearly obvious that I am not the hero but the villain of my story. Although from the way I was sitting, clearly there was no life in me (never mind that I had asked for a bottle of Life lager beer but the attendant said it was finished). Honestly, as a student I never liked their services at CEC but I kind of enjoyed sitting at their quadrangle to sip beer in the cool of the evening.
I smiled a distracted smile when I noticed this lover boy whisper something into the girl’s ear. As I kept my gaze on them, I concluded that they were both students of UNN. I frowned when I noticed the girl giggle at the boy’s joke. Something in me felt terribly bitter seeing her happy. ‘That’s how they laugh at your not-too-funny jokes when they have got you under their armpit. Tufiakwa umunwanyi!’
The girl who is pretty, tall and elegant was also beautifully dressed. The guy who was obviously enjoying her company had a goatee; he was probably five feet-two and he was putting on a well starched white shirt and black trousers. He looked like those pharmacy students who are either in their final or penultimate year. As for the girl, it was difficult to guess which department she was from. But, there was something remarkably striking about her as they stood holding each other’s hand like Rose and Jack of Titanic before Jack let go and got drowned____ she was wearing the kind of hairstyle that Ijeoma wore most of the time during our undergraduate days.
‘Who is Ijeoma?’ you may ask
Well, Ijeoma was the gold-digging daughter of a nobody I dated while in school. In retrospect, that girl be like say na jazz she carry hold me then. How can I, the son of a multimillionaire in the southeast date the daughter of a mere university cleaner? Well, truth be told, the kind of feelings I had for that girl then, I had never felt so for any other girl.
I met Ijeoma when I was in second year. On that fateful Saturday morning, I was rushing for lecture when I noticed her sweeping Eni Njoku hall in lieu of her mother (who was under the weather as I later found out). I was rushing out for a fixed lecture in Chemistry at Carva building. Those Chemistry lecturers like fixed lectures as if e dey give them oxygen, particularly one doctor (who I heard is now a Professor) from Yoruba land. That man dey stay for his office reach night most times. I knew this because sometimes when I come to the department to do what we call TT (Talking To) under the guise of night class, I sometimes run into him closing the door of his office. Sometimes, when I peep into his office while passing through the corridor of the department, I’ll see him handling either a test tube, a flat bottom flask, a conical flask or even looking into the lid of a microscope. That man like book die!
Talking about that lecturer whose name I wouldn’t want to mention, I remember when, during our orientation as freshers, he warned us that as Industrial Chemistry students, we shouldn’t have any business with those in the faculty of Arts and other faculties that are not related to Chemistry (or pure sciences). In his view, such association would drag a serious minded student down. While I listened to this dark complexion man address us, I laughed at his purported ignorance. As far as I was concerned, he was talking gibberish! I mean, how do you restrict yourself in a place as big as the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, only just to pure science students? Omo, boredom go kill me na.
Let’s look at it this way, that man was basically telling us that before we starting making conversation with prospective friends that we randomly run into, we should try and find out their faculty or department first. ‘What nonsense?’ I thought.
While I was seated among these group of ignorant-looking fresh university intakes, I was laughing within me. Nobody knew who I was. The only distinctive thing about me then was that I wear glasses everywhere I went. I’m sure no one even knew that the eye defect I was suffering from was myopia. I’m also sure that none of them knew that I had to defer my admission for one year because of the eye treatment I was undergoing at the time of my admission. Despite my eye condition, none of the students seated at the Physical science lecture theatre knew I was wide read. Well, let me not deviate from Ijeoma’s story.
I had a rude awakening when, a few weeks after I ran into that pretty, young girl (who would later become the daughter of Jazebel) sweeping Eni Nkoju hostel, I sat next to her in a GS class.
“I think I have met you somewhere before,” I said.
“Of course, you would’ve met me in this class,” she said with an expressionless face.
“No, not in this class,” I said. “I’m sure I…
“Young man, if that’s your pick-up line for girls, trust me, it won’t work on me,” she said with an angry facial expression. It was like my voice was that of an enemy.
“Yes! I remember now! You’re the girl I saw one early morning sweeping Eni Njoku hall!”
Her demeanor changed as she looked like someone who was caught shoplifting…” TO BE CONTINUED next weekend, hopefully.