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It was a rainy afternoon in June, it had rained from morning till evening and the streets were wet and muddy—they were almost flooded. I usually stayed a while in school anytime the streets got flooded that way, in a bid to lengthen the lifespan of my shoes. I opened a book I had downloaded on my phone in PDF format and began to read. It was a memoir of one of Nigeria’s great writers and I was just beginning to enjoy it. I would get engrossed with the book and lose touch with everything going on around me until a bolt of thunder would alert me again. The school was almost empty now, all the students had gone and those who remained were a few colleagues and I. After sitting for about one hour, I heard someone saying hello from the door. I looked up slowly from my phone reluctant to interrupt my reading. But as I did, my gaze was met by the softest eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. My perception of the figure that stood before me that day was that of a religious faithful who had seen a god. That kind of beauty could not have existed amongst mortals. She’s one of the gods, I thought. I still think of her that way anytime I watch her sleep beside me, those eyes that could melt the fabric of anything.

“Hello” I responded. “How may I help you please” I managed to add.

“Good afternoon,” she replied her voice was sonorous “I would like to see the principal” she said her smile as radiant as a sunflower in bloom.

“I’m afraid the principal has closed for today. What do you want to see him about? I’m his personal assistant.” I lied; I wasn’t a personal assistant to the principal.

“Errm… actually I want an interview with him.”

“Oh?” I asked with a questioning look.

“I’m a tourist here and I would like to know more about this town, so I decided to interview the principal, and a few more people.”

“That’s quite thoughtful of you” I replied “the whole town is in a mess right now I would have taken you to his house.”

“Really, thanks. We can go in my car”

“Yes we can.” I replied and packed up my books to leave.

“Are you here alone?” I asked her immediately we hit the road.

“No,” she replied and my heart skipped ninety beats “I’m here with my family.” She added when she saw the questioning look on my face.

“Oh, cool.” I managed to say.

“Yes. I’m here with my parents and siblings. We flew in from Kano yesterday morning.”

My heart beat returned to normal and I smiled broadly with an accompanying sigh of relief. She gave me a sidelong glance and smiled in return. That fateful day, I met the love of my life. I knew it from the moment I saw her. We chatted about many things; about the fact that we were both strangers in the town, even though from different parts of the country — I, from the west and she from the north. She is Fulani and I’m Yoruba. We talked about the serene environment nature provided in these parts. We talked about our careers. I discovered she was studying to become a pharmacist. I told her I studied civil engineering. It was a happy day for both of us. It was as though we both have been waiting for that day. I cannot conclude that it was a coincidence that we had the same interests in; literature, history and antiques.

We interviewed the principal and he also introduced her to some chiefs whom she also interviewed. It was a fun experience for both of us. She dropped me off at my house and headed for the resort where her family was lodged.

After she left me in front of my house, I became aware that it wasn’t a dream. For everything its worth, I just saw the exact person I have imagined for about one month. Is it that real? I asked myself. This lady came all the way from Kano to Calabar. I had many questions and I needed quick answers to them. Why did her family decide to come to Calabar for a vacation out of all the vacation spots in Nigeria? Why did she come to look for the principal of the school where I taught? There are five schools in that town. Why did she come when I was in the school? These questions and more were the ones that occupied my mind. Nonetheless, I felt happier than I used to be. In fact, the happiness had started even before this incident occurred. I was so eager to tell Ireti what had happened and I also wanted to apply the same principles to other areas of my life. That was what I called the beginning of my life.

I travelled to Calabar the following day to break the news to him. I planned to return the same day so that I could hang out with Nicole. I still wonder how I thought that possible, being that Calabar to Obudu was a five hour drive. I ended up sleeping over at his place. But we didn’t even sleep. We talked through the night. It was then Ireti began to expatiate on the things he told me eleven months ago.

“I’m happy you had a first-hand experience of this thing.” Ireti said after he had treated me to a meal of Eba and Afang soup—a soup I had always wanted to taste.

“Ireti I’m still baffled about the mechanics of this thing. How can such things be possible? I believe though, because I’ve seen it myself, but still…”

“People have failed to understand that we have the ability to bring everything that is good into our own lives. In fact, bad things too, depending on which side the individual chooses.” He began “as long as we can think or talk, we can get anything we want. It’s as simple as that. However, it goes slightly further than that. Apart from just talking about or thinking about what you want, you have to feel love for that thing. You have to come to a point where you translate your thoughts to and words to feelings. A point where you desire a thing so much that it becomes as if you actually have it. That is the point of connection, the point where you lay hold on that thing.”

“I felt good about having the lady of my dreams. Ireti you don’t want to know the crazy things I did before I met that lady, it was as though we were already dating. But what still baffles me is how she found me. Did she know about it or something? Or is it spiritual?”

“Spiritual?” Ireti asked. “What is spiritual? I’ll tell you. To me there is no difference between what we call spiritual and physical.” He was staring at me now waiting for me to express my shock. I didn’t because I already knew my friend. I wanted him to feel like I understood so that he’d continue. Ireti would simply change the subject if he discovered his audience is finding it difficult to understand him. I didn’t want that.

“The spiritual,” he continued making the quote and end quote gesticulation “is simply a higher level of energy in which physical things operate. I believe everything in this world is energy. Come to think of it, science proved that energy can never be created or destroyed but can be changed from one form to another. I’m sure you are aware that all our inventions are based on this principle. The world is complete the universe is complete and nothing is really used up in that sense, it’s only being changed to another energy form or state.” He was getting agitated now.

“Pardon my digression,” he continued “Spiritual things are not in another world. The spiritual realm is not a destination. The spiritual realm is in this same space of ours. But because we can’t see them with our physical eyes, we tend to ascribe to it a different world entirely. It’s still this same three dimensional space. The reason why we can’t see the so called spiritual things is because our eyes are configured to see only in this energy level. You can’t see electricity, but electricity exist. You can feel it though, just as we can feel spiritual things. Electricity is nothing but electrons that possess a certain level of energy. But will you term electricity as spiritual? No. Think of it as a fan with three blades. When you turn the switch it starts to roll. Depending on how that speed is you may still see the three blades rolling. When you increase the speed, you may begin to see two blades instead of three. You’ll notice that as the energy or speed increases, what you are allowed to see reduces. Now imagine turning the switch to the highest point. I’m sure you won’t see anything but a blur image of something rolling. You wouldn’t even see one blade and I can assure you that if it’s possible for you to increase the speed of the blades to a certain point, you won’t see anything at all. Not even the blur image. You would only be able to see through the blades as if they aren’t there at all.” At that point I flinched.

“Yes,” he continued “you would be able to see all the things that are at the back of the blades clearly. This doesn’t mean that the blades are not there, they are only operating at a higher level of energy than the physical eyes. But we won’t call that spiritual. Would we?”

I nodded in agreement to all that he said as it gradually dawned on me. “So you mean spirits are here right now but we can’t see them because they operate at higher energy levels than we do?”

“Exactly.” he shouted, excited that I was finally getting it. “So don’t think your experience was spiritual. The word makes the whole thing complicated. There is such a thing as the law of attraction. It brings what you desire to you. All you just need to do is attract them. And the secret of attraction is love. Give a feeling of love for what you want and you’d get it. That’s the law of attraction. It is the law of love. The holy book says ‘the law has been summed up into one; Love.”

“I can recall it said in another text ‘whatever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them.’ The key to having anything is to first desire, and then believe.”

“Yes…”

“The desire comes before the praying. A lot of us jump ahead to praying but while we’re praying, somewhere deep down in our hearts, we are still not sure if we want what we’re asking for. The scriptures say ‘love believes all things.’ if you want to work the law of love, you have to believe. After you desire, you go ahead to pray, and by prayer I don’t mean only going on your knees and talking. Prayer is more than the words you speak. It’s more about the thoughts you think. That is why it is possible to ‘pray without ceasing.’”

“Hmmm…ok” I said nodding in agreement.

“But our minds have been twisted in such a way that we have to strive to believe — we don’t have to. If we love enough, we would believe. ‘Love believes all things.’”

“Yes. And that is by desiring it strongly?”

“Yes. If you can desire it to the point of believing it, you can have it.”

“There’s no limit to achievement if the boundaries of belief are removed?” I quipped.

“You know, that will pass as a quotable quote.”

Finally I was satisfied with this explanation, maybe because I had experienced it. Neither did that concept remain strange nor simple to me. It became simply fact. It became actual and concrete. It became real — my reality. As I dozed off in the early hours of the morning, I found myself musing on the word desire, what it meant to me and what it was generally meant to mean. It was quite shocking, — the realisation that I had never looked up the word ‘desire,’ so I got up to get a dictionary and I looked it up. Another shocking realisation I had was that it meant: to lust after; to crave for or to want; to place a demand on. And the noun form means a strong attraction. Then it hit me, what it meant to desire. I went to bed thinking of the things I wanted to see in my life. The things I desired. I knew I had to give a strong desire, as well as a feeling of love for them, maybe a crush, which is a strong feeling of attraction for someone, or something. At last I said “it is possible to have a crush on an object of your imagination because, if you can imagine it, then it exists.”

The End…

Written by an Egeria Press Author, Adekunle Adeayo