“Dare! Bimbo is getting married!”
A visibly excited John broke the news with his usual gusto.
How could it have been so? Is this one of John’s well rehearsed tricks?
These and a barrage of other puzzling questions flooded my mind simultaneously.
“Guy be serious, which Bimbo are you referring to?” I managed to utter with an outward calm that betrayed my inner turmoil.
“Same Bimbo we both know” Your…
“How did you get to know?” I interjected. Unable to maintain the pretentious calm anymore.
“You remember Janet? Her bestie from those days, I ran into her at the mall today. She gave me an invite to the wedding reception.”
John hurriedly headed for his Car and came back almost immediately, producing a cream coloured wedding invitation card. He handed it over to me rather nonchalantly and returned to his seat next to mine at our favourite hangout spot, Club XV.
I couldn’t steady my hands as I glanced through it. My greatest fear is visible before my very eyes. Her name is glaring, Akinkunmi Abimbola Janet.
“It is finished” a voice in my head whispered softly.
As if in a trance, my mind travelled hurriedly back with a speed I couldn’t comprehend.
************************
On that fateful afternoon during my sophomore year at the University of Ibadan, I was heading for my hostel from the faculty after a tiring day. The only thing on my mind was getting to my room, dropping on my miniature bed and zooming off into dreamland. At least, that was the most probable thing to do after such an exhausting day attending lectures.
The moment I set my sight on her, call it love at first sight. I was simply captivated by the sight approaching me. In spite of my predicament and my strong intent to head for my room as hurriedly as my tired legs could carry me, I had to slow down to admire her. No guy in his right mind would do otherwise.
Bimbo, the incredible beauty of a slender shape, the intoxicating freshness of an ebony skin, that surreal smile that can melt a stone in a twinkle of an eye, those large and sharp brown eyes. In short, She is beauty personified.
“Excuse me, can you direct me to Queen Idia hall?” she quizzed melodiously. I was jolted out of my reverie but I couldn’t find my voice immediately.
“Errrm…Right along.. you will have to turn and head towards that bend” I stuttered.
I mean, it’s right along the route I am taking, I can lead you on. I added when I noticed her puzzled expression. I instantly decoded that she was a fresh student who just got allocated to her hostel.
That was how it all began. I ended up aborting my mission to the hostel and led her right to her destination.
Henceforth, we developed a close bond that neither of us could fathom. Bimbo is simply everyone’s complete picture of an ideal girl. She is smart, brilliant and also morally upright. We spent a lot of times together and by the end of the first semester, I asked her out and as expected, I got a yes. Oh! That was one of my happiest days.
Our love story was one of a kind on campus, a day doesn’t go by without our religious trip to the coveted and sacred love garden on campus. We walked hand in hand wherever we went and we were both regular callers at each other’s hostel. To cap a sensational year for both of us, we got the recognition as the most admirable couple on campus at the annual student union government “Award Night”. Our love story is simply one out of an Indian movie script. Near perfect if the word perfection does not exist. How could it have ended so abruptly?
*******************
“Dare, we can’t be together anymore, we don’t have a future together” Bimbo dropped the information like a bombshell.
I was left dumbfounded, I didn’t see it coming at all, not so soon. This was coming after I demanded to know the reason for her apparent estrangement over the last few weeks. How could she have done this to us? I asked no one in particular.
“But baby, why? What have I done to deserve this? I managed to ask her amidst stammers.
That instant, she went on a long explanation and analysis of facts and reasons to back her action. Explanations I couldn’t really pick a word from, my mind was dazed by the unexpected turn of events. I was simply incapable of comprehending the facts that she had laid before me.
My mind only regained it’s capacity to comprehend several minutes after she left, leaving me stranded at what was our love nest, the school’s love garden.
Just then, after the initial shock, my mind started replaying the accumulated information it received a while before then. That instant, the meaning and implication of all she said dawned on me. It was actually unconvincing and unbearable.
Determined to get over the hurt, I headed for the day’s lecture. But I realised after only a short while that it was the wrong move. My mind was drifting to and fro. My conversation with her kept replaying in my head, constantly interrupting the lecturer’s explanation. After about 30minutes of battling to keep my mind from straying back and forth from my conversation with her to the lecturer’s enthusiastic analysis of a particular topic that is known only to the rest of the class. I trudged out of the class and headed for my hostel.
Several days went by, but I couldn’t get over the bitter loss. Everything I tried to divert my attention to, reminded me of her. I even tried passing time on my ps3 player, it only served to remind me of those countless times when we play on the ps3 together.
When I eventually summoned courage to call her, a sonorous female robot voice told me her phone line was switched off. I hung up, disappointed, masochistically reliving the indelible loss over and over again.
Eventually, I abandoned myself to my sorrows, she is right to call it quit after all. She had little or no choice.
*********************
Since those days, I made up my mind to live continually with this ached heart, and placate my hurt with the fact that I loved truly and deeply.
That hurt and pain I still harbour in my heart till this fateful day.
“It is finished” I said aloud. Coming back to the reality of the present day, with John’s puzzled gaze fixed on me while he sipped his beer nonchalantly.
