In hindsight, I suppose I deserve what’s happened to me this morning but standing there in front of the chemical engineering lecture theatre, grim-faced, the only thing going through my mind was “Man, today has certainly not started well oo. This is the last class for the semester for God’s sake. How did I manage to attract this kind of luck sef?!“And because I knew who the lecturer inside the lecture theatre was, it didn’t help in the slightest that I wasn’t the only one outside. Looking at the others, I had a feeling that they all knew that our chances of getting into that hall were next to impossible. I had unfortunately managed to miss the door by a mere 3 seconds-yes, I counted it. Associate Prof. Sonibare looked me in the eye and shut the door right in my face. “I couldn’t have gotten here faster“, I thought, trying to console myself. My subconcious, who’d been surprisingly quiet all morning raised his head and sneered at me

“Idiot, if u hadn’t gone back to take that your stupid earpiece, you won’t be in this situation“.

Ironically, the mood I was in was the shit-how-did-i-get-myself-into-this-situation mood, which definitely doesn’t support listening to music. I had to agree with my subconcious this time.

     I had resigned to my fate. I remembered Dr Sho telling my class one time that the only time he’d caved in to a student’s begging was when Sonibare’s own uncle accompanied the student to beg.

“Good luck with that“, my subconcious muttered sarcastically.

Suddenly, like a surge of brilliance, it came to me…”Shebi Femi managed to enter now, he should be able to sign the attendance for me”. With what I’ll regard as lightning-pace, I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialled Femi’s number. My breathing very much accelerated at this point, this was my only shot. After very little begging, Femi agreed to sign for me. Only then did I start breathing normally again.

     So, with my head down, shoulders slumped and my fate resigned, I began my LONG walk to my departmental library. Once there, I slumped to a chair, placed my head on the reading table trying to wrap it around how I managed to miss the door by 3 seconds. I guess I was already lost in thought cos it took a couple of seconds to realise that the voices I’d been hearing for a while now were those of students that attended the class I had just missed.
“Class isn’t supposed to end for another 30 minutes“, I thought, bemused.

Instinctively, my legs, as if acting on their own volition, ran outside to the scene of students chatting and laughing as they were walking away from the department. Standing there staring, I was pulled out of my current revelry by the buzz of my phone vibrating in my pocket. GRRR GRRR…GRRR GRRR…my phone went on as if unconcerned about my current predicament, and who could blame it…it was certainly doing its work.

       Seeing the caller ID on the screen of my phone, my heart flew into my mouth. “Hope this Babafemiwa won’t tell me that he didn’t write my name in that attendance oo, cos then this morning would just get a lot worse“, I thought. “How far? you help me write my name?” I asked, failing to hide the apprehension in my voice. “Relax ode, I don help you write am” he replied, too casual for the mood I was in. “…but something else don come up oo, the man talk say make all of us wey dey there submit our handout oo, im talk say if you no submit am for there say make you no bother submit am again oo, some people still dey try beg the man sha, so you still fit try submit your own”. “Okay boss, thanks for the attendance anyway…ehn…later then, bye.” The line went dead. “What the hell nooooow?!“, I shouted in my head, “just 3 seconds“. Just as I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, I saw it. The pandemonium surrounding Associate Prof. Sonibare. I stared open-mouthed as scores of students from different departments thronged Sonibare begging him to collect their handouts. People usually regarded as TUSH people were practically kneeling in front of this man all to no avail. Suddenly, he stopped, turned back and spoke in a voice that depicted more deviousness than anger. Smiling that his annoying smile, he began “I told you all at the beginning of the class, I knew you unserious ones won’t listen” he said, shrugging, “and I’ll just tell you now, don’t bother writing my section in the exam oo, because I won’t mark it. Better still, just go and remove the course from e-portal.” “Yep, my day just got much worse” I said aloud to myself, rolling my eyes at the same time.

     I’d initially had the feeling that Sonibare won’t collect the handouts but that didn’t still stop me from having the slightest glimmer of hope that he would miraculously cave in to the cries of mercy going on around him. After watching the scene that was just played out in front of me, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my handout wasn’t getting into that office, at least not conventionally. My mind raced through a number of insane options on what to do which quite frankly included sneaking into his office and also finding one of his relatives to help me beg. The way things were going, both were beginning to look plausible.

     Even at that, I decided to stay and for the first time since my ordeal began that morning, I decided to pray.

                      TO BE CONTINUED

Tobiloba Elusakin is an intelligent writer who likes to pen down his thoughts, experiences and imagination in writing. He is a student of the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University and is currently in his fourth year, studying Chemical Engineering. You can contact him on his facebook account.