IMOSE

IMOSE 1

I sit in class listening to Dr. Daniel as he lectures us on Utility. The previous time he took the first part titled Cardinal utility and today he is here trying to break the differences between Cardinal and ordinal utility. He is just at the second page of the topic in the textbook and I am already feeling bored and uninterested in his talks.

"Which kind class be this self? I for no just come."

I overheard Jasper telling his friends at the back. I could have sworn I was the only one feeling complacent about his class today, probably because my eyes and thoughts have been all about the beautiful Imose who was again the reason for my distraction in class. I have been stylishly – absentmindedly – gazing at her even before Dr. Dan who normally is a habitual late comer in class walked in early today to the awe of all the students in class and those who were still cat walking because they felt it was going to be the old late coming Dr. Dan today.

"Nomosese" meaning the "The most beautiful" as many usually call her is just the exact description of her name "Imose" which means "Beauty". She is to me the most beautiful girl in Uniben at least amongst those I have seen. Although many of my bookworm friends as we are popularly called will disagree with me on that but none has ever argued that Imose is not the most beautiful in our faculty which means she is the most beautiful in our department. I have been crushing on Imose right from our first day in Uniben as freshers when we all came out for clearance under the hot scorching sun of November – that sun that stretches pain deep down your bone marrow – reddening the skin. We were all freshly dressed and I had worn my best clothing for that day, put on my best shoes which Aunty Esohe who practically pays my fees bought for me before coming to school. My aim was to avoid any embarrassment from the clearance officers and as such I was neatly dressed, ironed my clothes two days before the clearance day for my department and even took a cab to the venue on that day to avoid being rough edged by passengers of the big Uniben shuttle Bus. On getting to the clearance ground, I saw hundreds of fresh students fighting to break through and enter the single room where two lecturers were clearing students and had given orders that students are expected to enter in fours. I knew my hard work of ironing my clothes with creases has all come to nothing fruitful. Although, I'd expected being applauded by the clearance officers for being neat and corporately dressed but then I guess I should still be happy with the crowd because they motivated and made me to fly out my tucked in shirt so as to avoid the word "bloody fresher wants to impress" which Uniben satellites use in taunting new intakes. They can even go to the extent of snapping you and mocking your dressing on social media with the tag "Bloody Uniben fresher" on the picture.

It was in the process of struggling to enter the room that Imose stepped on me with her fine Sandals. She was dressed in a multi-coloured gown, a band to fasten her black hair which gave way to proper view of the beauty she possesses. Her brown melanin skin was so smooth that I couldn't take my eyes off her, at least, when I got a glance of who stepped on me. Her eyeballs can cause even the world's strongest man to stand still even though she is no Medusa. I got lost in her beauty that I didn't even mind the pain I felt from her stepping on me, she looked at me with no word of apology, walked inside and there I stood amazed, muted, by the beauty I just saw.

"Does such beauty still exist in this part of the world" I'd asked myself.

Immediately after I came out of the crowd, cleared by the officers, looking frustrated and famished at about 3pm that afternoon, I was trying to just rush home and get something inside my rumbling stomach. If I had been hinted it was going to be this hectic and a battle for the survival of the fittest I would have eaten and not bother killing myself with dressing gorgeously as if I was going for an interview in an Oil and Gas industry. As I walked hurriedly pass the walkway to an open area that lead to the temporary accommodation given to fresh students by the school, I heard the sound "Tch Ssssss" as if someone was calling a bike man, I looked back and saw Imose beckoning, signaling to me to wait. I was fidgeting and wondering why she was calling me, I was trying to rehearse what to say and how to compose my sentences, was my grammar and vocabulary good enough to capture her heart? Was I going to stammar just like I did when I first tried to woo a girl back in secondary school? I kept asking myself questions and didn't even realize when she brought out her hand for a shake.