NOSTALGIA

A New Dawn

My fragile heart had been trying to refill the deep cut it sustained from the departure of my Sunflower. The thing I had for Amina was real and pure. I might consider Aliyah's incident as a mere infatuation by a small boy flipping through the early pages of a book called life.

I am the owner of my own heart, determining what feeling was love and what was infatuation is my own cup of tea to sip alone. As a sixteen year old boy and a rookie, I reacted to Amina's absence by developing a nonchalant attitude towards girls. My heart might be hungry of love and it may beg me to feed her with a replacement to the vacant space once occupied by Amina. Something might occur that could force my heart to yield and give way for someone to drag it out of the jail it had locked itself in. How did I end up finding myself at the bottom of the ocean of Amina's love? It just happened without any plan on ground. Who knows whether it might occur again? No one can tell because no one really has ever posessed the power to see the future and tell how exactly it will be recorded in the book of history. We only live and react to the events happening within our environments and hope for the best fortune to unfold. Amina could be replaced but the scars would last for eternity.

Whenever love decided to pay it's old time friend a visit, Amina would always bounce up to the top thoughts of my unresting mind. Perhaps, it is the price one pays for loving someone unconditionally and having that love being requited equally.

Friends are a part of one's life, they're like angels sent by God the Almighty to accompany one in the journey of life. A trip to an unknown and unspecified destination. Thriving through the rough and smooth unpredictable and uncertain path. 

On the anticipated Monday morning, I was fully covered in my new school uniform. The uniform looked the same with the one I used to wear in junior secondary school. The only difference was that the junior students wore short sleeves while the the seniors wore long sleeves. To be notorious and to impress the girls when we were in junior, we sometimes wore the long sleeves. The seniors would chase us down, they'd beat and threaten us not wear their pride again but that didn't make us stop. Looking for trouble was our motto. If medals were being awarded to the best troublers, we'd have gotten the gold platinum multiple times.

I was assigned to the science class at first. At the class I saw numerous students in new uniforms all over, everyone was busy doing something. My eyes went round in search for the glimpse of Zaid and Legend, but I couldn't spot any of them. Where are the two clowns?
I saw Musty sitting at the front wearing his neat and well ironed uniform. We waved at each other. He always looked serious, I used to wonder whether he lived in a house of shelves filled with books from all the various disciplines. I could see my former JSS classmates. I walked silently to the back seats of the class and blew away the dust of an empty seat and sat down alone. I silently observed everything happening in the class. The only differences it had from the classes in JSS was that it was bigger and the chairs and desks were newer. The girls unlike in JSS, didn't occupy separate rows, they were sitting together with the boys.

I was awaken by the sudden silence that befall the class. I raised my head and saw a man standing in front of the class. He was wearing a blue shirt and a black shiny trouser, his height was average and he was dark in complexion. He must be a teacher by the way he was looking at the whole class, it was that terrifying look some teachers posess with a habitual little frown. He is going to be boring I told myself. The class was so silent like the middle of the night and all eyes were cluelessly glaring at the teacher.

"Good morning everyone!" The man started addressing the class.

"Good morning Sir!" We all chanted with maximum concentration. No one would like to be labeled stubborn by a teacher on his first day in a senior class, and most preferably not by this no nonsense kind of teacher.