The onions are shrieking in the frying pan boiling in cooking fat hell for their sins and Beautiful is the Hades who has condemned these poor souls to the abyss of soup purgatory. I, Pablo West, will have my fill of naughty onions today it seems.
“So tell me what happened?” Beautiful says without looking up from the pan.
I can’t see all the ingredients from my vantage point on her bed but the view of Beautiful’s posterior is enough to assure me her cooking must be equally delightful. At this point, Mary Jane comes into my head and I feel a twinge of guilt for admiring her enemy but brush it off at once. I didn’t break up with me; I console myself so I have nothing to worry about. Though I am sure she is aware of my mended friendship with Beautiful.
“Well,” I begin and my mind goes back not so many hours ago…
Prelude: The Exam from Hell
“Did you finish?”
“Finish? I don’t think there was even time to write my registration number!”
“That bad?”
“Terrible. We should stone the lecturer.”
“No, we can’t do that. Assault, battery, prison will be terms you know like the back of your hand.”
“It was just a suggestion.”
“Yeah, I hear you. It was an awful exam. Hope you kept your notes, you never know.”
“I know. If **** gets a re-sit then I’ll get one too.”
“You copied?”
“Like I said, it was terrible.”
Scene One: Initializing Vituko
“Hiyo exam ilitumwa,” Odeny says to me.
I can only nod in agreement. I have never been so harassed in my life. I was so tense my brain froze up and I couldn’t even tell the difference between a zero coupon rate bond and a…a…and the other type.
“My head hurts ata sijui nitajisort aje,” Pablo West says. I let him take over since he usually has the stamina to still go on. I am still so depressed from the exam.
As we walk away from the exam hall I see Wuod Matha rush towards us. I smile at an inside joke we have about him. He’s the ‘woman’ of the group when it comes to speed.
For example: We are all discussing where to go take breakfast and a consensus is soon reached so we decide to leave. And right at that moment when we all get up to leave Wuod Matha will like clockwork do his thing and suddenly have some life or death thing he has to do before we leave delaying the whole breakfast project. (Like suddenly changing the top you are wearing will lead to world peace)
And he does this ALL the time.
“What had you forgotten to write?” Odeny Chuma asks and I join in laughing. That’s how YGB shows its affection. They tease you TO DEATH.
“Your head size,” Wuod Matha hits back and the laughter continues.
“So how do we exorcise the demons of this paper?” I ask the rest.
Everyone is in deep thought but no one says anything. That is what finance does to people. It ***** you up.
And at that time an angel of form appears out of nowhere and delivers us the good word for Friday.
“Twendeni KBC tujisort,” MGM says coming up from behind us. “Beer will only cost us 100 bob.”
At that moment we look at each other and it’s as if the same thought clicks in our minds simultaneously. We are going to KBC to show Finance it won’t get the best of us. And if somebody were to see us, I’m sure he or she would have seen exactly the same look among delinquents who have just come up with a full-proof mango stealing plan. Nevertheless, Friday has just found its form.
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