Walking Dead: Chronicles Of A Terrible Day

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“Racheal”

“In the name of all that is holy! What’s gotten into you?”

“Have you suddenly lost your right senses?”

“Did you take too much caffeine yesterday?…uhn???” I listened as my best friend Gloria quietly scolded me on and on…. Her face was red, her fists punched, and I knew she was super mad at me. Despite being so aggravated, she was the least of my problems right now. I had an even worse situation on my hands. Dr. Kingsley looked like a volcano ready to explode.

“Oh God, I’m in trouble again…”

I quietly muttered as I shut my eyes to swallow the little tendrils of pride I had left. I felt the prying and deriding gaze of my course mates weigh heavily on me from the crown of my messy hairdo to the sole of my muddied sneakers.

I felt terrible, looked terrible, and had just done something terrible in class too.

No! No! No! This is the kind of thing that only happened in a bad dream, or in a stupid fiction book; to a stupid fiction character. Never in real life. Not to me.

Oh no!

“You stupid girl, what did you say to me?” I watched as Dr. Kingsley’s face turned red with anger. He was livid beside himself with fury and I, the object that seemed to ignite and spark this insipid fury further, seemed complacent.

“You heard me right sir. You can’t make me leave the class” I retorted boldly.

“Oh no, I did not just say that,” I thought to myself. I was shaking with fear on the inside. It was a real miracle how I managed to put up a straight face before Dr. Kingsley. I felt Gloria’s eyes burn into my back like a silent plea, telling me to shut up.

“Shut up! You insolent girl! How dare you speak to me in such a derisive manner?”

Dr. Kingsley asked as his nose scrunched further to resemble a child’s dump with two holes in it. His nose really could cause me to laugh if the matter was not so delicate.

“How dare you, young lady?” he repeated.

That question was the infinite sentence, “how dare you”. When African parents and elders resorted to that phrase, it is an indication that their pride has indeed been hurt very badly.

I immediately felt a pang of guilt. The girl in me that preferred to be hidden and subdued; The Racheal that preferred to receive the blame for everything, every time, immediately wanted to yell “…I’m indeed sorry sir, forgive my ridiculous behavior…” and the part of me that always preferred to be trampled upon would have quickly said these words to resolve the crisis. That girl in me still wanted to take the coward’s route and just plead instead. But the day’s experiences had made me grown into somebody else. Or was it just a part of myself that I refused to let out all this while?

So, instead of apologizing as I would have gladly done in the past, I quickly threw Dr. Kingsley a stank eye. This was a battle. A survival of the fittest. May the mightier one win.

I watched as he battled within himself on what to do with this sudden bold behavior from a student. The academic environment rarely saw such brevity and lack of fear.

As I stared quietly praying that the later consequences are not so damning, I suddenly became conscious of my appearance again.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see the slay mamas -a phrase used to address a group of fashion-oriented and lousy groups of girls on campus, point to my shoes again, and stifle a burst of laughter so as not to catch Dr. Kingsley unwary attention. Gosh I hated them!

Bisi, Norma, Maggi, and Tolu, ‘The Whisper Girls’ as they were fondly called always found something to laugh about in anybody’s and everybody’s outfit, all the time; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 4weeks a month, 4 months one semester!

They were a pair of ‘follow follow’ puppets who really had the same level of minuscule thought patterns; colorful and beautifully dressed dummies, That’s what they were!

Although they were unarguably the meanest girls in the class, I seriously could not blame them today. I looked really terrible. They really were justified for laughing as I stole a glance at my muddied sneakers that had bits of dry cow dung, and shrubs in them. I looked dreadful, and the whole class was probably contemplating what must have gone wrong with the supposedly ‘calm’ and ‘refined’ Racheal – as they fondly liked to address me.

What a bad day. A terrible day. What could be the perfect adjective to quantify and describe a day as horrible as this? For some reason, my dogged and deliberate efforts to improve my vocabulary seemed to be failing terribly, just like everything around me. I was beside myself with frustration.

But how did it go so wrong?

The day had first begun with all the wrong reasons, and it seemed I had woken on the wrong side of the bed too. The previous night had not been a walk in the park either.

If only I had just slept at the appropriate time, maybe none of this would have happened. All because of a stupid test that may not even hold. I hate the Nigerian university system.

As I quietly replayed the series of events leading up to Dr. Kingsley’s loud reprimand in front of the entire class, I came close to tears.

…

The night had been starry like every other, after returning from a straight back-to-back lecture series in the faculty, I was beside myself with exhaustion and anger because I had to read a 150-paged material that the lecturer had just given to us that afternoon.

Dr. Kingsley was a dictator who gained glory in bullying students and some members of staff as well, he happened to be a renowned lecturer in the Department of Plant Biology and Biotechnology, and was highly revered within the faculty.

The text material was for an impromptu test that he had deliberately scheduled for 9:00 am the next day to spite his students. This material where questions for the text would be extracted from was about 150pages voluminous and worse than all, written in tiny print! We had less than 8hours to read through this material that had the ability to make or mar our result as it was for 40-marks.

Despite all this, it was not a new development as we often experienced such acts that are said to supposedly improve students and help them become the better leaders of tomorrow. Who am I kidding? More like future crammers of tomorrow!

Dr. Kingsley did not think there was something unfair with this; a man who preferred to think he was always right. Even right enough to drop a 150-paged material a night before the departmental test. For God’s sake, how did he expect us all to read through the entire material a few hours to the test?

It was downright ridiculous.

“Absurd!”

“Insensitive!”

“Unfair!”

“Na wa oh!”

And other adjectives were the outbursts that displayed the students’ disapproval and echoed in the air as he made the unjust pronouncement on that day.

I hissed as I burrowed through the bulky material, determined to cover all of the necessary headings.

Buzzzzzzz buzzzzz

I jumped.

“Oh, God!” I yawned loudly startled by the shrill sound of the alarm.

I detested alarms and worse than that, I hated being woken to the shrill sounds that emerged from them even though they were literally set by me.

Sometimes I amaze myself. I thought as I quietly sent a swear word to whoever thought to invent such evil in the first place. The amount of displeasure that had emerged from the alarming episode quickly roused me with the soothing energy, to begin with, my day’s task, and that was when the realization dawned on me. I couldn’t finish up on the material for the test the previous night, and I had slept off due to unfair exhaustion.

I quickly lounged for my phone.

“Shit!”

It was 8:36 am already and the 40-mark test was scheduled for 9:00 am.

I was livid with anger and frustration as I stepped out of my makeshift apartment and headed for class dressed in a casual white shirt, jean trouser, and poorly combed hairstyle. The clothes were the first things my hands could pull up in my closet.

I stepped out of the hostel at exactly 8:45 am. Dr. Kingsley did not entertain lateness, especially during a test. I was in deep trouble. As I hurried to catch the last bus in the park that’ll take me to class, I did not notice a little boy holding a lunch pack. This little schoolboy was also entirely absorbed with the lollipop sweet in his hands. His mother was gisting casually to a woman who sells eggs, and was not paying any attention to the little boy.

With the bus the only thing in my vision, the next series of events was unpredictable and left me reeling with shock. It happened like a movie. I suddenly collided with the little boy, and his fully packed meal of rice and stew opened and spilled on my plain white tees. As is to be expected, a piece of cow-dung that was left on the floor made me slip and the shock propelled me to bump into the woman hawking the bowl of eggs. Yes, it was a dreadful mess.

The unrepentant child was wailing as he had just lost the object of his fascination: the lollipop, and the woman with the bowl of eggs was livid with anger screaming that I pay for her eggs as well.

It was a mess, and the time was 8:52 am.

“Sis sorry oo!”

“Eya see this fine aunty on the floor.”

“And na white she even wear self.”

These were the unsympathetic murmurs around me.

I quickly apologized to the egg seller while promising to pay her with some cash. As several passers-by aggravated the situation with their seething remarks, I struggled to get up.

I peeked at my phone as I quickly hurried to my apartment which thankfully was not too far away from the site of the incident. The time was 9:10 am.

“Why me today?”

Chance Encounters

First, waking up late, and then a collision incident on the road??

I quietly asked myself as I stood before the mirror, trying to scrub off the mess that was glued to my face. I had no time to quickly change into a new outfit.

I had to take that test as I could not lose my chance at a 40-marks bonus even if I was poorly prepared.

I finally got to the hall, and quietly sneaked in.

Dr. Kingsley was facing the board, clearly absorbed with something else.

“Thank God”

I muttered as I quickly sneaked in to meet Gloria. She had reserved a seat for me. I sighed with relief, hoping to settle in and blend in with everybody else without drawing attention to myself.

As I scurried to write down my name and matriculation number on my sheet of paper, I suddenly heard a shrill sound burst out from around me. It was my stupid alarm, but why in God’s name was it ringing out loud now?

“Who’s that?” Dr. Kingsley barked.

“You come out now! What have I said about ringing phones and distractions?”

“I’m sorry sir,” I quickly apologized, hoping to divert the attention from myself and head back to my seat.

“How did you get in here? That seat was not occupied a few minutes ago” he quickly retorted.

Leave it to Dr. Kingsley. The man had keen eyes and an unfailing sense of smell for everything. Nothing could pass through him unnoticed.

“I’m so sorry sir…I’ve…” I stuttered trying to explain while realizing that the whole class was staring at me.

“Shut up! You even smell strange, is that stew on your forehead? Alright, please get out of my class.”

“I’m sorry sir, but that would not be possible,” I retorted sharply.

The full class seemed to stop breathing with my reply, tension flared in the air.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me sir, I’m not leaving. Not until I’m done with the test.”

” Rachel!”

“Rachel!”

“In the name of all that is holy! What’s gotten into you?!”

“Have you suddenly lost your right senses?”

“Did you take too much caffeine yesterday…uhn” I looked at my best friend Gloria scream quietly behind me on and on…. Her face was red, her fists punched, and I knew she was super mad at me. Despite being so aggravated, she was the least of my problems right now. I had an even worse situation on my hands. Dr. Kingsley looked like a volcano ready to explode.

“Oh God, I’m in trouble again.”

I watched as Dr. Kingsley’s face contorted with fury. I could not even begin to consider missing this test after everything I had done to make it to that point. It was a war, a survival test, and I was willing to win.

“Follow me to the disciplinary council, you’d need to have a word with the Head of the department. You insolent girl.”

“And the test for today has been canceled,” he declared loudly to the class. I watched as the whisper girls all jumped up for joy. I couldn’t blame them, nobody was really prepared to write the test anyway. But what would happen to me now?

As I headed to the HOD’s office, I reviewed the events of the day and smiled to myself. Truly, when push comes to shove, things are bound to change for the better or the worse. Even if the test did not hold, the day’s event had taught me to stand up for myself every time in the face of any opposition.

I wondered what the disciplinary committee would do when they heard the series of events that led up to my messy hair and smelly sneakers day.

Maybe it would be worth it after all.