The Painful Pleasure (TPP)
EPISODE 15
I got to my room, and I met Mayowa, already sleeping. I just went straight into preparing for the next day’s work. Mayowa had cooked ‘condition rice’ before sleeping. So I ate, then I tried sleeping too. It was then my phone rang, it was my mum. That was the second time she was calling me since I resumed school. I was so happy to hear from her. I apologized to her for not calling her earlier, I told her I have been busy with registration activities.
She told me a lot of things, and repeated the ‘Ranti Omo Eni Ti o n Se’ speech. But what surprised me the most was that this time around, more emphasis was laid on ‘No 3’ of the list. She kept on telling me to be careful with girls, maybe she had seen some things in the realm of the spirit concerning me. I thanked her, and told her, I won’t let her down, then she ended the call.
Lectures were going to start the following day, it was going to start with an ‘8 o’ clock’ chemistry class which would last for an hour. Abdul told us (Mayowa and I) to get to the venue as early as 6:30, or else, we won’t get a sit. We considered it as an exaggerated fact, how can we go for a class, 1 hour, 30 minutes earlier.
Mayowa started the ‘church-gist’ in the evening around 8pm. He told Emeka and Olu how I was behaving like a ‘church-freak’. Those ones, blamed me too, they said I should have followed him when he said he was coming to the hostel, after all we went together. Mayowa started talking about Aramide, how I was talking to her, about music, and he had to leave, since he didn’t like music talks. Emeka was surprised that I was talking to a girl again. “Guy, you be woman rapper o, you never even finish Sandra patrol, you don dey start another one.” Emeka said to me. “Watin be the girl name self?” He asked. “Aramide” I answered. I didn’t tell them I have fallen in love. We talked till around 12am, and slept.
We woke up around 7am, we rushed up and by 7:45am, we left the hostel for the Chemistry class.
The Painful Pleasure (TPP)
EPISODE 16
When we got to the class, what Abdul told us turned out to be true. We got to the class 7:55am, and the whole ‘lecture theatre’ was filled to the brim. Some people sat on the floor, while others were standing, holding their notes.
The lecturer was not around yet, so the place was so rowdy. People were walking up and down, looking for empty, unnoticed seats. Mayowa and I joined in the quest. This quest was for people who didn’t want to sit on the floor, or stand all through. As we were going to the front, looking around, someone was waving at me, it was my FDF (Moji).
I went to her, and she offered me a seat, right in the third row. I managed to ‘enter’, managing the space with mayowa “You kept the sit for me?” I asked her. “No, not exactly, I kept it for my roommate, who later decided to sit at the back with her friends, she said she doesn’t like sitting in front. When I just saw you, I decided to give my FDF the seat.” She answered. “That was thoughtful of you.” I said. “Yeah right!” She answered.
The lecturer came around 8:05am, and when he entered, everywhere became as a grave yard. You could literarily hear the sound of a falling pin. The man started by welcoming us to the university system, as he laughed at those sitting down on the floor. He told us he is also a graduate of OAU, and during his time it wasn’t that bad.
He welcomed us to the course ‘CHM101’, he was successful in planting the seeds of fear in our hearts after telling us the high percentage of people that do fail the course, and cases of people who had extra sessions just because of this course. He discovered that he had only succeeded in causing panic, he told us that it’s not that difficult, all we had to do was to study well, and everything was going to be fine. Now, everyone became a bit relieved, then he started taking the course.
Since it was the first class, he just gave us the course outline and recommended some texts. He talked about ‘readings’ and ‘errors’, and before we knew it, it was 9:00am already, and we had to end the lecture, as some students of ‘arts and humanities’ were already waiting outside to use the same venue for their lecture.
The lecturer ended the class, and everywhere was congested, about 1500 people were trying to exit the hall, while about 750 were trying to come in. “You didn’t even call me at all, after I fixed your phone.” Moji said to me as we were slowly moving to the exit. “Why didn’t you call me too?” I shifted the blame briskly, I had forgotten that I didn’t give her my number. “You didn’t give me your number, it was your phone I fixed, you didn’t get to fix mine”. She said to me. Now it occurred to me that I didn’t give her my number. “Oya ma binu, I totally forgot.” . . This time, we had gotten to the exit. We continued the conversation, as we were going to the hostel. Mayowa wasn’t angry with the whole thing in anyway. in fact, he was joining in the conversation the little way he could. . .
Tbc…
