Pricked in the Heart

It had been the days of tempered nonchalance. My life revolved majorly around books, music, and a bit of street soccer. On the books side, I read almost anything of interest but with a particular penchant for thrillers and personal development books. I enjoyed slow, sentimental and rythmic music and always fancied the depth of lyrics served in rythm and blues, the stacato and blend of sounds of hip-hop and the mix of local drumming, mostly husky vocals, and wisdom of the fuji and juju music. My forays to the local playground around my residence then although infrequent, was usually exhilarating. Although I have never been tall, I played mostly as a keeper or defender. The remembrance of the injuries and a broken thumb sustained on this adventures unwittlinly brings a smile to my face. Life was simple, straight-forward, and uncomplicated.

For my books, I strolled to CMS to get them cheap and of good quality and condition. Made quite a number of swaps too and then there were borrowings and exchanges from friends. For the music, saved bits and pieces from my barely enough allowance to buy a mini sound system. With this, I fed my musical apetite late into the wee hours of the night. Recorded some, borrowed some, and bought some albums as available. Life really was simple and without any bit of complication. Till that day.

I was on holidays from school and was living out my peaceful existence. One of my past-times was walking through the usually well populated and lively streets around my abode then. It was on one of these walks that I chanced on an invite to a summer coaching school organised by the Youths of St. Johns Church around the area. I can't readily recall the attraction for me then, but I chose to attend and returned home immediately to commence plans for my attendance. The commencement date came and I arrived at the venue to see a relative level of unpreparedness on the part of the organizers.

The class assigned to my level was without desks and students were just standing about and hanging around the balcony. I have always been proactive and so decided to look around to see if we could get vacant desks. A few others joined and we were able to collect enough. It was in the course of this arrangements that I first encountered her. I had in a bit of naughtiness chosen a desk that was extra big and positioned it at the front of the class. She had walked up sheepishly but with this little smile on her face and asked to share my desk. I remember quickly looking away and saying 'why not' and with that we became desk-mates. Moments later, our first instructor arrived. He chose to as a way of warming us into the summer coaching, organgize an inte-row quiz which will be based on core subjects. He asked us to go prepare for this and scheduled it to hold after the first sessions and a break. It was during this break that we really got talking. I have always been fudamentally shy around members of the opposite sex when we are one-on-one, I however thrive at group conversations.

The camraderie that ensued in the course of our getting desks and arranging them already guaranteed a ready group; added to this was the eventual appearance of a few of my school mates that surfaced at the summer school unexpectedly. Together with them and a few of her friends we set out of the classes for the break and in the course of this got to make proper acquaintance of one another. Unconsciously, we ended up being apart from the group and got into exclusive conversation. I learnt we share a mutual friend and we also learnt quite a lot about each other during that break and by the time we returned to class, we were almost as cool as old pals. While I make friends easily, this was new for me. We arrived the class and the intentioned quiz commenced. I have always suffered the accusation of being too forward with what I know, but I have always insisted on its not being for show-off but natural exuberance. To avoid this labeling, I just kept quiet and allowed others answer questions for our row. Few rounds into the quiz I realized we were trailing dangerously and on the verge of loosing to the other row. She kept poking me to do something and not allow us lose. Then, a question was posted to our row for which no one seems to have an answer and the instructor was on the verge of offering it to the other row as a bonus when I raised my hand and was able to answer the question correclty. The competition flunked their question and I was able to earn our row the bonus thereof. After this, I became the unanimous leader of our row and we eventually won the quiz that day. After the quiz and the end of the class, she had smiled at me, nodded and asked if I wanted to walk her home but I had mumbled an excuse about my friends from school waiting for me. Friends who on my return to them had poked, smacked, and knocked me for being a dunce turning down the opportunity to walk home with the pretty girl he is obviously into. Of course, I denied and chastised them for being loose. That day finished on a high for me notwhitstanding my later regrets that I should have walked with her as my entire being wanted, but for the first time in my life then, my thoughts and passions veered from those 3 things earlier mentioned.....
{To be continued.....}