It was him

It didn’t sit well with her that she had fallen in love with a man three years younger than she; she had done the arithmetic in her mind a million times already; 2003 minus 2000. Was he even a man or just a boy? She did not understand herself, neither did she understand her waving affections. Just like other principled ladies in the field of medicine, even though she never put it out explicitly, she had desires and ambitions of being anything but a wife; she was a career woman before she was a family woman. Maybe she would get married, maybe even fall in love, but it was not something that nagged at her heart the way she was drawn to creating her space in the professional world of health care. She was well respected, probably feared a little by her peers who thought her such a resolute and stern lady to indulge trifles. Yet her kindness and amicability was known to everyone of her acquaintances. Her smile had a bright glint in it and a warmth that made it easy to engage her in conversation. Her attention was so pleasurable and her lady friends and male alike always seemed to revel in it. The only passion that had seemed to greater than her desire to succeed in the medicine was her love for God and an unquenchable desire to be a vessel of his using. Her dedication was to eternity and her life had very little to do with the vile things of the day. That’s why romance had been out of the question until he got to meet the young man who had strangely taken the reins of her heart and stole her peace.

That morning, it was unusually cold and she had covered herself in a blue fluffy shawl. Her steps seemed heavy and measured, and in the depths of her smile she was miserable and shaken. The whole of her knew she was clutching at sin but her heart had been really stubborn in letting the thought go. Just the thought of the idea had something despicable and unseemly about it, and after a few minutes of analysis seemed obviously repugnant and unrealistic, but as the consciousness of its clandestineness grew so did the vehemence of her affection. The ongoing realization that such a kind of affection was not only unacceptable but impossible caused the roots of her desire to grow deeper and more obdurate. It was not something she could openly confess to her peers and so she concealed it in the depths of her heart that was clearly growing more desperate and forlorn. Maybe she had allowed her heart to grow so cold and she was becoming a little carnal. Had she forgotten all the lessons she had learnt about purity and reasonableness. It was not that her desires for her colleague had anything to do with a sexual underpinning, it was the kind of fondness that made her to pine for him when he was absent from fellowship and prayer meetings. It was always delightful to have a conversation with him. She loved how he looked into her eyes when he spoke to her about anything. She might have wanted to be shy but she never was, instead, his kind gaze only warmed her heart and made her hope the moment would last forever.

She soon understood that her feelings were clearly an infatuation that needed to be nipped at the bud, and surmised that she only needed to set her priorities right again. Her love for him meant nothing, if it was love at all. And so it was that she gave her time to reading a few books on love, dating, and marriage. None of them made any mention or gave any illustration of how a lady would handle the reality of falling in love with a man younger than she. How she would handle her fate was therefore left to her conscience and the scriptures. As she lifted her hands in worship, tears flowed from her eyes, her knees wobbled a little bit and she almost lost her balance. She gracefully went on her knees and a cry rose up in the depth of her soul. ‘Lord, take this vile thing away from me. I can’t bear to sin against you in this way!’ She sobbed herself away. Those around her admired how ardently she prayed, and hated themselves for their self-consciousness that made it impossible for them to raise their hands and call on God with such passion. She would have laid prostate on the floor was it not that the worship session had just wound up and the praise session was beginning; she might also have soiled her dress for the floor of the hall where they held their Sunday services wasn’t as clean and as pristine as her hostel room; besides, she had trained herself to keep a guard over her religious passions that might have been seen as excess and unseemly zeal. She managed to gather herself up in the same graceful way she had gotten on her knees, then she reached for her purse to get her handkerchief and dry her teary eyes. All of it did not matter anymore, it was now time to praise the Lord. Someone came in to occupy the seat beside her. She didn’t look, she knew she looked awful, and she didn’t want to show it to her neighbor. So she didn’t turn to say hi to the person as she would normally do.

‘Turn to your neighbor and give them a high five!’ came an imploration from the stage. She managed a smile and turned to the neighbor she had hitherto been avoiding. It was him.

Anthony

It had been a long and boring day. Anthony had opted to stay indoors as he was usually drawn to do. He had hoped to get far reading a book he had borrowed from the county library exactly a week ago but he was yet to get past the first two pages which he had read on the night of the day he borrowed it. He had laid it aside to go through a few slides of a document on the pathology of the skin, he had never picked it up again. Tonight as he went through his pathology notes, a feeling of great weariness overpowered him and brought him to think of what hour of the day it was exactly. It was still nine o’clock, and even though it crossed his mind, and his bed was just beside his study table like most of the other students who stayed in self-contained rooms were, he quickly dismissed the thought. Though he felt so tired, an irrepressible feeling of guilt kept him from going to bed, for about two minutes, and then as fickle as most of his other resolutions also were, his fatigue won over his guilt.

As he got into bed, he remembered all the things he was supposed to have done before the day ended but had not gotten himself to do. By now it was clear to him that he usually took a lot into his hands than he could possibly manage, and just like most of his colleagues, when there was so much to do, he did nothing. “Terry,” he whispered. Terry was a second year pharmacy student he had met during a talk that the university administration had organized on the ‘Administrative Positions in Health Care Student Medics Should Think About.’ Had he met Terry somewhere else he wouldn’t have been thinking of her as he had had all through the weekend. He had wanted to sit next to her but she had gotten up to leave immediately Anthony seated himself beside her. She went out to pick a call. When she came, she chose to seat in another section of the room that had relatively few people. Anthony had not seen her come in, neither did he ever see her again. If he had, may be he would have asked her to be his girlfriend.