Episode 3

JOURNALS OF A NIGERIAN UNDERGRADUATE
FIGHT NIGHT.

It was two months into my first semester, I was getting to know new people, adapting to the new village Nsukka environment and oh Monday my psycho room mate had entered the dreaded third stage of his cycle where he becomes the stingy, psycho, vulture, vermin, hyena, phil collins loving sociopath. ( yeah seriously, Phil Collins was the only musician he was familiar with). Luckily I had two new roommates to share my situation with though I could still do with a whole football team because this fool Monday was insatiable with giving trouble.

My new room mates were Charles and Kene. Charles was a stray who Monday made believe he was generous enough to let him squat in our room. Unknown to Charles Monday had a straw to suck the life out of whatever the poor boy had to offer. Kene on the other hand was sent in by the school authorities and Monday decided to argue with the school authority that they were not allowed to send someone to our room. Seriously? where does he get the balls to make such a stupid arse argument? I mean the legal amount of people allowed in a room was three, the authorities just sent the third person and some where in his skull this argument can be won. That day I made up my mind this fool had to be a 
Crack baby. 

At this point he had issues with everyone. His room mates, people on our floor, his class mates, his church brothers, even cultists. Whom I prayed would kill him but they didn’t see him as worth it. You see the bastard had convinced everyone he was crazy so he was just seen as the village idiot. Now my room mates and I would have to poison him... OK that's just having happy thoughts but the problem was how to get rid of his body. Give me a moment to think.....

Anyway back to the story, Monday was a tyrant with no respect for other peoples property. I could be walking in our school faculty and see someone walking towards me from far and I’d be like, oh no someone else has the same shirt with me in this faculty and I’ve not yet worn mine damn! Then I look up to know who this is, then the face starts getting clearer with an annoying familiar smile. Then Monday stammers to me, a-a-aaabi the shhirt fine for my body? The bastard. This went on in our room and when warned not to touch our stuff , this fool would tell us, I-I-I deyy seeee you as my jjjunior brrother. Yeah this was easy for him because he had nothing you’d want to wear without catching an expensive disease since he took his bath on only very special occasions or you could just get stoned for wearing such ugly shirts. Monday even took his rubbish out side. He could go out, borrow stuff from other neighbours and of course sometimes without telling them (which in other cultures except Monday’s is called stealing). There was a day one of my neighbours stood at our door and saw his electric cooker almost in ruins just by the door. he opened the door slightly and asked how it got there since he hadn’t seen it in over three weeks. I told him I dont cook so he should ask Monday who was taking a kings nap then. The conversation went as thus.

Neighbour: Monday! na you use my cooker like this?

Monday: Abeg, cloooose my door ou-ou-outside dey smell.

That was the end of that discussion. The neighbour kept complaining and Monday just rolled over and slept of. This guy had to be kept on check as soon as possible because not even cooked food was safe any more. Kene could cook leave the room to buy water and come back to meet Monday eating his food telling him thiiss rice sweet oh. This boy you sabii ccook oh.
One day I got to the room late after female rejection from female hostels. I was hungry and it was really late cause canteens were closed. All I had was garri in my bag. When I checked my bag it was not there then I asked Charles and the usual suspects name came up. Then I felt my fuse pop. Charles told me to cool off but that was not an option cause I had already heard Monday’s voice approaching the door. I walked straight up to open it for him to see that annoying smile. I slapped his face so hard I looked at my palm and saw his smile glued to it. By now the neighbours had started running out to seperate the brawl. We spent the night in seperate rooms that night, I would like to believe it was because I was kicking his arse good but it was actually for my safety. I was sleeping in the opposite room from mine and all through the night I could hear Monday yell, First year slap meeeee!!! Aaaaargh!!!!, I dey seeee bloooddd!!!!!!, (its funny how he’s not stuttering now) this dude was gesticulating like Hulk Hogan when he’s coming up from the ground. (seriously).Everyone was scared he would stab me in my sleep. 

The next morning I went out and came back to see Monday wandering around on the lawn so I took the chance to straighten out things with him. Monday, I said smiling at him and keeping a safe distance. He looks at me with vengeance in his eyes and says Ooooobi, Ooooobi, you youuu insult meeeee? You wey I seee asss myyy juniourr brother slaa slaaa slaaaap meeee. Holding myself from laughing, I apologise to him and he goes on and on about his battles at Warri. I-I-I dey fight well well before oh, I-I-If you seee my back you go seee mark mark mark wey them tchuk me bottle. I then ask, but if you were such a warrior you wouldn’t be that tchuked (even though all I could see were mosquito bite marks) but he didn’t get the joke and luckily he didn’t take offence either.
We made peace and for the rest of the semester he didn’t touch anything that belonged to me. Kene and Charles were the victims now. I had come out victorious in this or so I thought. That fight only helped in diminishing what was left of my rep. I had gone from Nwa mummy to hungry boy. I was fighting to stop this psycho from terrorizing us but to everyone else, it was for a few cups of garri. There’s no satisfying these people. Life’s a bitch! 

Ekeocha Nnaemeka