Dear wisdom, we’ve been philandering around earth for the past few months. On the safe wings of the pen, we have flown into houses as prestigious as the Government house, and have flown low at other times, into houses as impoverished as those whose occupants are servants to peasants. All these, wisdom, were done to bring us some relief - relief from pains which were so non existent that thinking about them now, I earnestly wish I could resuscitate, habour, and preserve them; if only they would save me from the firm grip of pain’s toughest pangs that strangle me presently. And so, now, we have met with true grief wisdom, maybe we should fly again; not into some castle; nor into a hut; but into old wisdom’s acutely sensitive skin – which has been mutilated of late by a disastrous fall.
Before now, wisdom, we have been students at the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus. Our hearts, no doubt, should and was marvelously grateful to mother nature, who in fulfillment of every promise she made, brought that to pass. After the celebration and all, wisdom, we devoted ourselves to our studies – or at least, bent ourselves in no other direction than that, allowing ourselves only such intermittent rests as was necessary to forestall fatigue. But the more we cultivated that farm, the more the truth emerged more glaringly before us; we may have chosen the wrong profession, wisdom!
Somehow, every single thing said in class was so boring that even though my gaze was always fixed on the lecturers, my ears weren’t. And even when my ears suffered themselves to grant audience to the grim utterances of these scholars, my mind never rested upon them. I remember that whenever I found myself in class, I always started counting the number of minutes left before the lecturer would leave. The happiest moments of my doleful days would be those moments in which I would watch a lecturer leave the class – while the saddest moments were often those moments in which I would watch a lecturer walk into class.
As if contempt of class wasn’t heinous enough, I realized how puffy, foolish, and self - conceited my classmates were, and made it a point of duty to be unlike them. This meant that since they were truculent, it was my duty to be amiable. Since they were proud; it was my duty to be humble. And to place the final nail on my coffin; since they were always in the know; it was my duty to be out of the know! All these slowly worked their effects on me, and my G.P. while I relaxed, placing my hopes on mother nature, whom I believed, would inevitably prevent the worst from happening irrespective of the importunity of my lunacy.
The days wore on, and my indisposition to my academics grew more fervor, so that on the very day I was to check my first set of results; I couldn’t help doubting even the ability of mother nature to spare me of the so many Fs I was sure I really deserved. As I walked to the faculty office, my eyes kept their stolidity, and so did my mien. But deep within, things were flushing, blushing, and washing.
I checked the first course, elementary mathematics iii, a four unit load course, which I wrote purely out of grace, and not out of work, and was relieved to see a B. I did this for the next 6 courses and was very thankful to Mother nature, who had spared me of the disgrace I deserved and placed Bs and Cs on them all. However, as fate would have it; I couldn’t find the reg No on the last score sheet which was that for Use of Library. I searched and skimmed the whole wall for it but was out of luck. At this stage, it wasn’t just that I didn’t see my Reg No; the problem was that the Reg No I saw which looked like mine had a grade that COULD NEVER EVER be mine.
I left for my hostel; hoping to catch some rest, visit the faculty again and see things better. But when I returned 3 hours later, the reg No that looked like mine turned out to be really mine and the grade that was there ----if only I could, through my advanced Information technology capabilities turn it around – was an f.
After measuring the reg No against the Grade with several instruments, and wondering at the possibility of there being a typographic error on the score sheet, it finally dawned on me that the Reg No was mine, and so the was the grade. I had fallen; and resounding was the sound of my fall.
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