I kicked a smooth shiny stone on the walkway from the Department of Geology to the Department of Mathematics, with the hope that it’ll somehow take my mind off the excruciating heat permeated by the sun on my skin and inside my chest. But instead of the stone to move forward like a football would, the tip of my slippers hit the uneven interlocking and I lost my balance and almost fell face down.

“Sorry, sister”, “Sister, sorry,” came sympathetic heartfelt voices from passersby whom I hadn’t noticed before.

I hissed and murmured curses at the old and frigid ground and hoped that none of my sympathizers heard me and thought the vile words were hurled at them. I looked at my foot. The straps of my slippers had cut so I took it off and held it in my hand. I continued on my way with a limp from my bare foot, humiliation and anger enveloping me, like a big flowy hijab that couldn’t be seen by naked eyes.

The GEO210 lecturer had fixed a class for 2 p.m but after waiting for an hour and half without his appearance, I had picked my handbag and left. Apart from this, my anger was also fueled by the fact that today, Friday, is usually a lecture-free day for me but that annoying lecturer had chosen to fix a class today even after the class’s unanimous decision to leave it for sometime next week.

“What an annoying dictator in the disguise of a lecturer,” I muttered to myself. Because of him, I couldn’t travel to Abuja to spend the long weekend with my boyfriend, I was about to melt like butter under Zaria’s hot sun, and my slippers had cut!

I walked the rest of the way to Suleiman Hall in silence, a scowl on my face. I was oblivious to the many events that usually took place in Love Garden—couples chitchatting on munches, FCS group prayer meetings, GT Bank or UBA stands for student account opening, 9mobile sim registration—because I absolutely did not care. I saw no one I knew and no one I knew saw me. This absence of human-friendly encounter allowed me bask in my emotions. 

The security personnel at the entrance of the hostel, as usual, were requesting to see I.D cards from students before granting them access into the hall. I found them more annoying than my lecturer even though they were only doing their jobs. I flashed my I.D card briskly and walked in without so much as a glance backwards even as one of them, a fat lazy one wearing a small hijab that seemed tight on her neck-less head, kept calling out to me “Heys! Heys! Come back here and show me your I.D card properly,” and got lost in the crowd of incoming and outgoing traffic.

I was welcomed by the usual putrid smell from Block F1. I scrunched my nose in disgust and regretted, for the umpteenth time, my inability to click Amina or Ribadu Halls. The ceilings here leaked, the walls—stained and full of cracks, the toilets—a disdainful sight to behold. I heard the daily ruckus from the general tap but focused on getting to my destination—Block A1. I was dying to have a cold shower, lunch and some good old siesta.

I had almost jumped the gutter, which was already littered with every imaginable dirt—biscuit and pure water wrappers, sanitary papers, rice, beans, spaghetti, even vomit—in front of the block when someone from the third floor poured dirty fish water down. It landed few meters away from me. But the height and force of the fall made the water splash heavily on me; on my feet, the hem of my white palazzo trousers, my arms.

Instead of walking to the stairs and ignoring whoever the idiot was, I retraced my steps and caught a glimpse of the bowl that had rained down fish water on me disappearing from the balcony. I didn’t see the idiot so I shouted, “Sister, you are mad!”

To my greatest shock, the pourer echoed my words, “Sister, you are mad!” and a prolonged hiss.

I ran up the stairs, without so much as an afterthought, taking the steps two at a time. My room is on the first floor but I was headed for the third. “We’ll see who’s madder between the two of us.”