“IKEJA IKEJA…” came the voice of the bus conductor.
We all shuffled forward in a sort of civilized panic where the only thing still keeping us orderly was the fact that the bus hadn’t come to a stop, we all knew immediately the bus stopped then chaos would be unleashed. It was a minibus seating eight passengers, it was either struggle to get on this one or wait till the next bus arrived, whenever it did arrive. If you snoozed, you loosed LITERALLY.
I was still groggy from inadequate sleep mostly likely caused by the fact that I’d woken up very early when I’d gone to bed very late. It wasn’t a new pattern for me as I was already used to it, but the real issue was that it was Monday morning. Monday was my most dreaded day of the week, it came with all the dreaded anticipation of a stress filled week. So even though I was lucky to get a seat on the bus, my mind was faraway.
Immediately the bus was filled up, the driver proceeded towards our destination. Seated in my corner just behind the driver, I was lost in my thoughts when I heard the bus conductor shout “E sanwo motor (Pay me the bus fare)”
I dipped my hand into my pocket to bring out the money when someone from the seat behind me stretched his hands to pay the conductor and said “I and the guy in Blue”. I brought out my money to pay and was informed that my fare had been paid for as the conductor pointed to someone behind me. It only then crossed my mind that I was probably the guy in blue.
I turned around to see who had paid for me and to subsequently thank the person when my eyes locked on the last person I’d ever expect. It was John my classmate from high school and I was caught in between wanting to smile initially and wanting to frown as I saw his face. John had been one of the guys in class back then, we weren’t close friends but we’d been on good terms up until the final year of high school.
It probably didn’t take much for the other passengers in the bus to know something was wrong. The conversation was awkward, the smiles looked forced, and in the end we both saved each other further stress by simply exchanging phone numbers. I almost contemplated giving him a wrong number but I didn’t, besides I knew fully well I wasn’t going to call him.
With the stress of the week and other things on my mind, I had forgotten about the encounter until Friday evening about an hour after I’d gotten home. My phone rang and as I checked the caller, I discovered it was John. He wanted to know if we could chat on Whatsapp, so I gave him the affirmative.
It was easier to catch up via text chat than it had been talking on call. We reminisced for a while about high school, the memorable memories as well as where each classmate was and who had gotten married. It didn’t take long for us to warm up to each other and the conversation eventually shifted to the topic we’d been avoiding all evening.
We’d been in our final year at the time when the incident occurred. It was during our final exams in high school and we had a lot of free time in between exams because the exam timetable was designed to last for about a month. We mostly filled up that time with a lot of football and other fun activities, even though we were supposed to be reading.
On that fateful day, we were playing the popular five-aside with both teams having five players each. My team was leading by 4-1 and I had already scored two goals so far, giving us a level of freedom to practice some of our dribbles on our opponents. It was humiliation and we knew it, but it was fun and the spectators were loving it. Unfortunately for me, the opponent team had John in it and though a good footballer, John and having a calm temperament wasn’t something you used in the same sentence.
I was about to execute another dribble when I was suddenly in the air and a few moments later, lying face first in the sand. I had a bruised arm and a bruised stomach from where I had landed, and my teammates rushed to help me up. John had been frustrated by all the dribbling and had executed a dangerous tackle. It almost turned into a fight as John refused to apologize for the tackle, and we ended up threatening each other before we parted ways.
I and John became enemies throughout the exam period and we never settled till we graduated and went our separate ways. John now realized just how foolish it had been not apologizing for his mistake and proceeded to apologize, but I wasn’t even interested in the apology anymore. It looked like something silly that we’d let blow out of proportion.
We’re not still very close friends today, but at least we still talk from time to time without any animosity towards one another.
