As Newton said; 'for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction', but I swear that someone else had said this or should I say something else. On my third day at Grace memorial school I was frenzied at an eerie sound at night. I can not actually remember the time but well, my watch from home was already missing . With the happenings around the school and mostly to me I decided to do some little findings which lead me to know that once you know something you can not unknow it __ That is another law that Mister Brilliant Mind could not put forth and well, a Never Mind like me came out with it because well, my life was on the line here.
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How it all started,
Well, at home, you can say am not stubborn but am just not obedient either and I do not lie but I do omit to say the truth. My father on the other hand worked at a cement production company which literally made his hands strong and up the task of slapping me whenever I went wrong.
This made me have a weird hatred for cement. It was no surprise when the news came that my father died at work in the cement factory by falling into the mixture of porcelainder and gypsum, hence a very terrifying death . But a part of me was happy and hell no! I did not even cry at his funeral.
Well, after dad died, I just had mum left.
Mum just got a new job at a supermarket, working as a salesperson for the supermarket night shift in addition to her daily accounting teacher job, just so that I could live my dream life . Hence boarding school came along.
I had just left from Form three and being in Form four as a boarder was different. I got to school and well, the first teacher I saw showed me he or she could really use some cover up makeup because the face I saw was a living apocalypse…
"Good day sir." I greeted politely.
"It's ma'am." She replied coldly.
'Oops!' I exclaimed mentally. That was one way to find out she was actually a HER.
I forced the hardest smile I could find in my arsenal. But well, what I got back from 'Mrs Him', showed how bad I was at feigning politeness.
She replied to me with a "hmm" and carried on on her way.
I did the necessary formalities and got my things checked for pepper and other things considered out of the hook . I waved mom goodbye and had to face life when she gave me a ten thousand Franc CFA note.
When I got to the dormitory, I saw my name tagged to a bed.
It read "Brain Whymer".
I looked closer, it was then that I noticed the mistake. My name was spelled 'Brain' not 'Brian'.
"Well, moving to important matters," I said to myself.
I quickly arranged my stuff, arranging my perfectly ironed and folded uniforms under my bunk bed. I decided to read the name tag on the bed next to mine and it read Peter Dickson. "Who the hell names their child 'dick' and 'peter'? I asked out loud, not loud enough for the other parking-in boarders to hear.
First, all Peters are liars following the Biblical story, and well, Dick… we all know.
I had to take a nap which I always do. I had a scary dream of me running away from a bunch of older kids at a swamp.
I was awoken by three taps on my bed and well, from the face and expression, it was dickhead.
"Hey, I'm Peter. Your first time in boarding school?" He asked. It was clear that he did not fancy the Dick of a name.
"First time in this school, obviously." I replied, trying to sound polite. 'what a dumb question.' I grumbled within me.
He had been here earlier. He already had his things all packed up and his personal space arranged and cleaned.
We had a chat about each other and guess what, I was bored to hell at his boring rich lifestyle and background or maybe it was boring because of the rich part.
We were led to the chapel later in the evening for a devotion and the rules and regulations were read from the so-called principal which from his face showed that he liked yeast foods .
He read the rules which I could barely keep up with after the first two and of which I would eventually forget anyway .
Later we had super. A type of jollof rice which made me wait for the soup until I was told it had no soup.
As we retired back to the dormitories, I noticed that the school was big and scanty as only newcomers and the examination classes were around. I went to bed pretty early and well the dream of me being chased by a group of older students still repeated itself.
I woke up to the nightmare but slept back with difficulties.
The next day passed as easy as the word 'passed'.
The next day went by too, except for one peculiar happening. The same helluva dream repeated itself for the second night and on the third night it was not a dream it was a vision and I was awoken by an eerie three synchronous knocks on my window, or so.
I concluded that they were knocks because if there were two I could say it were footsteps but three, I would say knocks.
I covered my head with my little blanket, maybe to block my ears and fall back asleep but it did not help and the knocking continued.
I tried to open my little cover to see if anyone was up. It was then that I noticed that well, in boarding schools, there's a time called lights out and lights out means 'lights out'.
I decided to check the time hoping it was close to dawn but the watch I might have had was missing or stolen because I could barely remember any memories of it.
I felt like waking up Dick but found out his bed was further away from mine than it was during the day.
"Holy shit!" I cursed in an almost inaudible whisper.
My heart beat precipitated in fright. The darkness of night on its own was already scary enough, then this… strange sounds, or rather, Strange Aberrations.
