CHAPTER 5

Lagos, Nigeria.

The third week of school met Maliya dreading the first class of the day.

Maliya chewed on her nails, half expecting the chemistry teacher to appear in front of her suddenly.

She could still hear the whispers from her classmates, and the looks sent her way.

Most of the looks were ones of amusement, and others sympathy, but apparently her crying episode didn't deter people from trying to make friends with her.

Now that school was in full swing, with virtually everybody in attendance, she had become a source of interest for her classmates.

Everytime someone would come up to her acting friendly, she would blankly stare at them till the end of their useless questions or boring introductions and then, send a small fake smile their way.

She didn't miss the nicknames whispered, she didn't even think they were trying not to be heard.

Seriously though was calling someone a crybaby, arrogant, or devilish the best insults they could come up with?.

She had always thought foreign and Nigerian high schools would be so different, giving how barbaric Nigerian teenagers were, but the school had cleared that stereotype.

She had expected the school to be unorganized due to the population of the students but she couldn't have been more wrong.

It was literally the most organized institution she had ever been in, albeit she had been in no more than three academic institutions.

But still.

The school was so organised that it's hierachy was unparalleled by any other she had heard of or seen.

Each class from jss1 to ss3 was similar in the sense that they all had a hierachy.

The students with the most influence in every set were the OG's.

They were a group of the most popular students, usually comprising of seven to ten students.

They were the group of the best looking, best dressed students. They were the party organisers, the sponsors, the most feared even by teachers, the most hated by the school authorities.

They were the best looking in the sense that they had altered the normally simple uniform to something a bit more complex.

They were the group everyone wanted to be part of, the ones people would kill to hang out with, the risk takers, and law makers.

Second in line were the sport freaks, these were the school's runners, basket ballers, footballers, tennis players, and jumpers.

They were popular in school, especially during second terms when the school held it's inter school competitions.

While they weren't as well dressed as the populars, they were generally well liked. It was in this group you would be likely to find aspiring military recruits.

The best of them often travelled to schools in and out of the state, and the authorities absolutely loved them.

One would think the reverse was the case, as they were the fastest in running away from general labour, but apparently winning gold trophies for the school was enough reason to overlook their faults.

Third in the pyramid of importance were the boarders, one would think boarders would be part of the other groups.

But the honest-to-God truth was that all boarders shared specific traits that could distinguish them from the rest of the student body.

Any one who went around with a metallic plate was sure to be a boarder.

Any one who laid her polished sandal on her table directly under the rays of the sunlight was definitely a boarder.

Any group of people who sat together soaking garri with about twenty cubes of sugar, powered milk and groundnut were boarders.

These along with some other amusing and unbelievable traits were a definite sign to show one was a boarder.

The rest of the people were the masses, just another face in the hall, another wannabe popular, another aspiring olympist. But she out of all people knew there wasn't just a person.

No one was a nameless person, a faceless person, no one deserved to be ignored, to be neglected, to be regarded as worthless.

No two people could ever be the same, the pain that ran deep in everyone's vein was enough proof of that.

The human mind was something beyond comprehension, everyone had something they hadn't shared, the human mind was such that it yearned for things it shouldn't have.

It felt pain when it was denied it's passion, it yearned to be loved.

Everyone was a hero in his own story, everyone wanted to be understood, everyone wanted to have a sense of belonging, to be told they mattered, to be held when in pain, to be forgiven when wrong, to be agreed with even when their points were stupid.

But no one had the same pattern of expressing their feelings, some chose to let it out, some people choose to bottle it up, some others prefer exacting revenge, and others chose to ignore it.

It didn't matter to anyone the way they addressed their pain, because everyone strived for normalcy.

But the universal problem was the true definition of normalty, everyone had different opinions on what normalcy was.

If normalcy really was a thing, everyone would think the same way, there would be no diversity, in other words humans would be robots.

But what caused thrill, pain, love, anger, regret, passion, idiocy, and even stupidity to exist was the lack of understanding, the diverse opinions, the quest to know, the hunger for answers.

If everyone was exactly the same, there would be nothing to know, to comprehend, everyone would have a similar patterned routine.

It would be nothing short of a world of robots and zombies.

But the world would never turn like that because even the clearest of explanations would evoke senseless questions, even the best of resolutions would be a subject of argument.

And it was for this reason that Maliya sat for countless hours at least once a week, marvelling at the incomprehensibility of her creator.

Who said humans were higher animals?

She so desperately wanted to argue with Mrs Ahmodu, the biology teacher when she fed the class with lies about the superiority of humans due to their advanced thinking.

She had no reason as to object to the statement that humans were superior to animals, after all the Qur'an said Allah SWT had given human beings control over other animals.

What she did not understand however was that it was because of the brain, while humans were able to invent technological devices and whatnot that made life more comfortable than it was in the primitive eras, animals still had the sense of unity that their 'ancestors' had in the ancient times.

Animals almost never killed one of their own kind except to protect their territory or for the purpose of reproduction, but the 'higher' animals would not bat an eyelid even after murdering one of their kind in cold blood.

Maliya caught herself in time lest her thoughts would further derail.

She couldn't help but think about what the true purpose of life was though.

She had never been the type to get influenced easily, and she could confidently say she was an independent person.

But attimes one needed a hug, to know there was someone who cared about them.

She hated the idea of loving people, her main problem was not knowing where to stop. She got too emotional...too attached to anyone who showed her the slightest bit of attention.

She didn't want to be the girl with the big heart anymore.

It wasn't always the best place to be, she had been the dumpsite for people's problems, she would fight for the people she loved and they wouldn't even care.

It wasn't as if she wanted to be praised by people, she just wanted them to see she was there for them.

But even the best of intentions were condemned by the ones for whom they were intended.

She couldn't be faulted if she chose not to bare her feelings to people, she knew she was pathetic but it just didn't matter to her anymore.

She wasn't numb to pain however, for whenever she would fall into prostration before her Lord, sobs would wrack through her body violently as she yearned to feel that connection between her and God she had always heard about in books.

She knew her Lord listened to her, but at times she doubted it, afterall there were other people in the world who were far more religious than she was, but she knew he listened nonetheless.

She couldn't turn to her family, throughout her time in that hellish boarding school, she had planned on ignoring them when next she saw them, she planned on making them feel as bad as she felt.

However, when she saw the tears in the eyes of her mother, she almost gave in.

She wanted so desperately to be in the arms that had encircled her in her childhood.

She definitely hadn't gone through the worst of fates, the fact that she was breathing was enough proof of that.

But the fact that the people who were meant to shelter her were the people who caused her pain was a truth she could never wrap her head around.

She had long given up on hoping it was all a dream, it was reality and she realized the truth, albeit later rather than sooner.

She had experienced things that had forced her to wish the worst of fates upon herself, and it wasn't a surprise that solace became her acquaintance.

In those months, she really believed she had become insane, many times she just longed to see a familiar face.

But one day with strands of her hair flowing in all directions similar to the microscopic diagram of a mould, she decided to read the Qur'an.

She had flipped through the endless pages of Arabic words, mesmerized by the strokes of the characters, assessing the book  uncomprehendingly.

She tried to decipher the meaning of the verses empowered by her minute understanding of the language.

She would try to piece the words together from the few meanings she got, aided by the translated Quran she found in the dusty shelf in the school library.

She soon made friends with one of the librarians, owing to the number of times she visited the place.

Daily, she read a page, and as her eyes skimmed along the black ink which contrasted harmoniously against the creamy white page, the words oddly calming.

Even when she didn't understand what she was reading, the sound of her own voice reciting what she knew were words that had been used as the constitution for the ummah a thousand years before she was born made her feel....connected.

Knowing the prophet had recited the same words she was reading made her feel a little bit better about herself.

She felt calm knowing that there were far worse people than the people who tormented her, she felt a sense of kinship knowing that the prophets had gone through worse challenges than she was experiencing.

It made every bruise, every scar, every burn, every scald feel like it was something more than it was.

Because one thing she had come to realize was that everything that happened had been preordained.

It was that sense of regret when she missed a prayer, that guilt when she stole a classmates pencil, that pride when someone wished peace upon her, and those supplications she uttered in the dead of the night that made her closer to her rabb.

It was what gave her hope that maybe,......just maybe, all she was going through would lead to something better whether in this life or the day she would stand before her Lord.

Some may call it cowardice.

Some may call it stupidity.

Some might go the extra length to call it madness.

But the balm to her pain was just a single, simple and consoling fact.

Her lord was all-aware.

And it was with that thought that she was shook awake.

And maybe the coal dark eyes staring right back at hers was a part of that something better.

Or not.