The University/7

I am walking back from the grocery store across the park and I notice for the first time that the flowers are in bloom. I also hear the occasional chirping of birds from the trees, which have started to sprout new leaves and for the first time in many months I am feeling upbeat .The birds are singing their mysterious songs of spring and I am wondering what they are communicating with each other as they sing. And then I start to hum the tune to one of my favourite hymns about morning breaking and a blackbird speaking…And I am trying to remember the wordings of the hymn but can’t get past the first stanza.

The cold air feels very refreshing. I breath in deeply to fill my lungs and then I exhale slowly-spring is here; there’s magic in the air and it is feeling as if a refreshing breeze is blowing away the stale air of gloominess, which had hung over my daily existence for the past few months and which had until today left me with a nagging sense of worthlessness and filth.

Maybe things are not as bad as I am making out, after all; suddenly I am not able to understand why I had been feeling so low in mood and why I have not been unable to live my life over the past few months without that burden of guilt-like the sword of Damocles-hanging over me. It is suddenly feeling as if a thick veil is lifting inside of me and I am feeling young and free. I fill my lungs again with a gulp of crisp fresh air. It is permissible to make mistakes in ones youth, I tell myself. Because youth has always been associated with folly anyway. I am young and its spring; the time when the earth is reborn and when the scent of love hangs thickly in the air.

I am thinking about love now and with the thought of it, the image of Adelaide is breaking forth into my conscious mind. That image that refuses to go away and which is always there lurking almost imperceptibly on the margins of my consciousness; lurking in the shadows but still very much there. And in the last few months I have been trying to distract myself from her; I have gone to extra lengths to ensure that I do not run into her in the hostel or at the preparatory faculty. I have been mostly successful but sometimes I have caught a passing glimpse of her in the distance and I have realised that I still need her. But it is clear that she belongs to the other fellow whose name I have learnt Is Pedro.

I have resigned myself to the knowledge that I have to move on beyond her and in my quest to forget her, I have come to know quite a lot of women. Yet in this knowing I have also come to understand that I need something much more deeper than the superficial intercoursing of the flesh, which I have been experiencing with the many “fighters“. A lot of guys like Ugo and Eddy-and the guys at the university-seem to be very comfortable with the no-strings-attached fighting as if they do not feel up to engaging with the women emotionally, but I do not feel cut out for that because it feels as if my own journey is different.

I find it difficult not to emerge from the “fighting” without feeling guilt-ridden. And i also find myself loathing the women whom I have slept with to the point where i never want to set my eyes on them again...until I once again numb my conscience with the Vodka and then the desire is there again throbbing strongly in my loins.

I have resolved that I will not continue like this. My heart longs for that pure relationship, which would have developed with Adelaide; my heart needs to love a woman. Because I know that the journey of love is one that I must make in order for me to complete my rite of passage into a real man and I have now decided that if it is not going to be with Adelaide then it will be with someone else; I can no longer be chained to my unattainable fantasies of her seeing that she belongs to someone else and I have blown my chances with her. I must now move on; it is as simple as that.

Tonight the Ghanaian’s are celebrating their Independence Day at the Intourist hotel and they want to have an even better party than the Nigerians. Ugo’s most recent girlfriend, Sveta-who he says is a good girl because she has never really had a boyfriend up until she met with him 2weeks ago-is coming to the party tonight with a close friend of hers. I am looking forward to meeting with this person and hoping that she too is a good girl; I am hoping that with her I can start my love story all over again and that through her I will be exorcised of the image of Adelaide.

I am going to collect the white silk suit, which Eddy has promised to lend to me for this evening. His trip to Turkey went very well and him and Ugo got very good returns on their investments. They had immediately re-invested part of the money in another trip that Ugo's friend in Moscow had made to Nigeria to sell antibiotics to some private hospitals and now they've become the big boys in the hostel with the money to burn and the clothes to show for it...and with an even larger stream of women, trooping in and out of their room at the weekends. I am beginning to envy them two guys.

Oh well, my time too will come! I am thinking as i decide to go and remind Ugo about the haircut that he's promised to give me later on this evening. Tonight I must look special because tonight a new chapter in my life is about to begin and its important that I begin to look the part.

The tunes of another familiar song begins to play in my heart as I begin to think about tonight. I am feeling increasingly excited and wondering what this girl-whom Sveta has promised to acquaint me with-will look like. I am hoping that she is beautiful and that I can fall in love with her.

Love is in the air, everywhere I look around...