The Examination

It was 7:54 when I finally opened my eyes. I had been asleep for over fifteen hours, and I realized that I was in big trouble for many reasons. I turned to my roommate who was still sitting at the table. She was fixated on her books and did not appear to notice that I had woken up.

This was my Bus, ever zealous, ever focused, ever determined to make a change where everyone else would invariably opt-out. I stood up and walked towards her. Sometimes, I loved her seriousness and passion for her books, but other times—especially like now—it made me feel like I was less of a person when compared to her.

I could never be like her, no matter how much I tried and yearned to be. Bus was efficient and dedicated to her studies. I was too, but not in that overtly assiduous manner.

“Hey Bus!” I called out, raising my crackled voice a pitch higher. The harmattan was intense on this side of the city.

“You’re finally up from your beauty sleep?”, she replied, teasing me with a warm smile.

“Beauty sleep?” I scoffed, wishing she’d not attempt to bring it up. “I wish it was the true ‘beauty’ sleep”, I replied in amusement.

“My typical beauty sleep should be nothing short of 26hrs of uninterrupted sleep. When I sleep like that, I feel genuinely beautiful like the princesses in Disney world. ” I continued in my defense, trying to clarify for the umpteenth time why there was nothing beautiful about the disturbing sleep I just had.

“You know I don’t play with my nap time nau.”

Bus chuckled, shaking her head in an incredulous manner as if she could not believe the words that were coming from my lips. I loved when she laughed like this, in this carefree manner, fondly reminding me of my mother. The woman who had brought us together and made us roommates in the first place.

“I’ve got exams in a few hours”, I muttered, complaining bitterly like she was amongst the board members of the school who had set the unfavorable paper before me.

“This school is after my life, Bus.” I pitched higher, mock crying in derision.

She burst into laughter again. “This school is after my life as well. Can’t you see?”

I rolled my eyes.

“You’ve got your paper by next week, and you stayed up all night reading. I, on the other hand, have got an exam in a few hours, and I spent the last 24 hours stewing in my bed trying to accomplish the grand unprovoked title of sleep princess. My mind don dey.” I lamented bitterly, laughing at myself in panic.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.” Bus reassured me in her quiet voice again.

“Will I?”

I walked towards the bathroom and hastened to take off my clothes as I got ready physically for my exams. Somewhere in my mind, I knew I was not mentally prepared to write an examination.

But as she said, I hoped I would be fine.

***

The hall was jammed with both the nervous, the prepared, and the unprepared. Students stood with tension all over their faces like the great apocalypse was about to happen. The exam hall was supposed to host a capacity of only 500 students. But it felt like the doors had been opened to suddenly accommodate over a thousand students at a go. It was always like this every year. I hated these times the most, the scuffle and drama of pushing past other students in a tight drag, in a bid to secure a seat.

Class hours were never like this. Students rarely showed up during the 9-week academic lecture calendar. But exams? There was something about never missing an exam that I would never understand. I quickly hurried in and found a seat close to the window. It was a good vantage position, and I loved it immediately. Again, I tried to recall something from what I had read. Nothing, my mind was blank like an empty paper.

I decided that I would write whatever I could comprehend and stay away from cheating as much as possible. I would be like Bus, and not cheat even if I did not know what else to write. I quickly decided to myself. A few minutes later, the invigilator bounced in looking like he was ready to fight anyone who dared to cross his path. I eyed him quickly from head to toe and sized him up.

Dr. Akira was always like this: Full of himself, and assiduously annoying like it was a pact of consistency for him. I hated the man and tried every means possible to avoid him at all times. I silently prayed against any trouble with him. I hoped he’d not cross me as well. I watched him hop about the hall like a donkey as he yelled for everyone to stay quiet.

The exams were about to start, and this aggressive drama was pretty typical. I watched Dr. Nkiru move to and fro as if in search of a lost goat in agitation. His stance and false bravado bemused me completely. I watched as his eyes landed and ogled a female student who had a rather wide bosom.

“Gosh, I hate this man…such a beast!” I muttered to myself as I watched him lick his lips in disgusting desire as he continued to stare at her.

I knew men like Dr. Nkiru, they were everywhere within and outside the school Campus.

A doctorate and a Ph.D. in anthropology would never be enough to suppress their innate cannibalistic lusts and desires. I watched as the other students shuffled around to get a seat. The examiners were already arriving.

Before long, Dr. Nkiru began to act a terrible scene for us to see as he quickly hurried over to her and scolded her for talking while he was talking.

“But sir…” the lady, who I remembered was called Chineyere from one of our classes replied. “Sir, I was not talking at all.”

As she spoke, trying to defend herself, her bosom wiggled funnily again, and I watched Dr. Nkiru’s eyes follow it like a stray dog begging for its master’s bone.

Before he uttered the next statement, I knew what his next response would be.

“Shut up!!!”. Dr. Nkiru screamed exaggeratedly. His eyes twinkled in a mischievous manner that was no longer mysterious to me.. Like he had a secret he wanted to keep to himself alone. I knew that look so well and was not fazed by it a bit.

Chinyere started to plead and beg simultaneously. Couldn’t she see that this was what he wanted? He wanted to trap her into becoming his prey.

Dr. Nkiru quickly signed a “-50” on her paper.

“Ahhh!! But this is unfair sir.” Chineyere shouted in disagreement. “I was barely talking, and now you’ve taken away half my mark percent for the course. How do you expect me to pass?” She yelled, anger welling up in her face.

“You must see me after the exams are over.” Dr. Nkiru yelled at her again, shutting up anything she had to say in her defense.

“Poor girl”, I quietly muttered. This man had not learned anything from the sex for grades scandal with his colleagues that shook the nation. What did they say about the unrepentant fly that follows the corpse to the grave? I was certain that nemesis, as with all things karma, would soon come to play out in his life.

The exam commenced immediately afterward, and I turned my attention to my question paper, attempting to put the drama that just ensued behind me.

I stared at the paper, and I could feel the unspoken silent tension in the already cramped examination hall. The headline of the paper read, “Do your best, and leave the rest”. I scoffed. Like the lecturer of the course would mark the rest as we have left it.

I shifted my gaze until my eyes landed on the major questions to be tackled. I skimmed through in a bid to ascertain how many questions I could answer confidently. I knew nothing. I quietly chastised myself for not delaying pleasure and sleeping off at the wrong time, when I should have stayed up reading.

As I sat in the hall, basking in regret, counting the stars, and praying to the angels to send help for me, I noticed that even the dullest person in my class was also writing something. I wondered if they all knew what they were writing with so much dedication, or if it was only a facade.

An hour later, something strange happened. While I was still calculating my way out with the angels, I noticed a series of guys dressed in red and black clothes speeding towards the examination hall with guns, cutlasses, and machetes.

They looked ready for war, and I knew immediately that trouble was approaching and I had to save myself. They were the buccaneer group, and everyone knew to stay away from cult groups when they wanted to have a clash. Their movements were usually accompanied by shootouts and bloodshed.

I wanted to save my head.

They soon began to circle the hall with their championing chants raised to the peak.

Chaos broke out within the Hall and I watched Dr. Nkiru break into a cold sweat. He was tense. The cult guys were here, and there was no stopping them when they set their minds to something. And today I wondered why they had chosen our examination hall of all places.

The next series of events happened quickly. One of the guys walked out of the group towards the hall. He looked like the captain and had loose tattoos splattered like paint coloring all over his body. He had a feather woven into his hat. I could tell that he was the leader of this cult.

He called out almost immediately.

“Where Nkiru?!!!” He asked in Nigerian Pidgin.

“I say where Nkiru?” His voice reverberated loudly across the hall, and I felt my knees tremble in fear as he looked around.

The gun in his hand moved alongside his eyes. I prayed to God that he would not shoot any of us mistakingly.

I watched Dr. Nkiru, scurry behind a big black chair, like a scared cat caught with the master’s fish in its mouth.

“I say wey Nkiru dey? Or else, I go shoot all of una.” He threatened again, this time brandishing his cutlass with his other hand. One of the students in front raised a finger. It was Bolu, the campus gossip.

“Excuse me, sir,” he stammered, pointing crazily in panic and fear. “He is behind the chair up there”. He stated, pointing towards the table that Dr. Nkiru had scurried to hide under.

The next series of events is something I would never forget in my life. Brandon, the leader of the cult group, immediately turned in that direction, cocked his gun, and fired two bullets straight into Dr. Nkiru’s skull.

The gunshot was deafening and immediately some of the girls started to scream and cry in panic. I watched as Dr. Nkiru’s body fell to the floor in surrender to death. His blood filled up the floor quickly like water flowing from a broken tap.

I watched in shock, stunned and speechless as I witnessed his heavy body crumble to the floor simultaneously with the loud gunshot.

It was mortifying and I felt my ears ring in horror. I had never seen a murder happen before. Why? Why?? Why??? Why did they have to kill him in such a brutal manner?

Soon, the cult group members began to change their mutterings into songs of victory, as they prepared to abscond quickly from the environment before the university security found out about the incident.

As the stampede to exit the exam hall increased, the last thing I saw was Chinyere, the girl with the wiggling bosom. While everyone else tried to run in the opposite direction out of the hall in panic, I watched her walk towards the leader of the Cult, who had fired the gun. She hugged him and muttered something that I tried to read from afar as they kissed disrespectfully before Dr. Nkiru’s body.

The words were,

“Hello baby, I have been waiting for you”.

I stood there stunned and scared. Did she make them do this to Dr. Nkiru?

Now I couldn’t decide who to hate more. Dr. Nkiru who had brought this upon himself, or this girl, Chinyere, who had signed and approved his death sentence.

All images are sourced from Unsplash.com