The University Village

Episode 13

THREE DAYS AFTER

They say time flies in the speed of light, often than not, seconds turned into minutes and minutes transformed into days. Bishop and Femi had constantly been visiting Skipo on his sick bed in the last couple of days, and this particular day wasn’t any different from the others. They had brought along a flask of food containing rice and stew garnished with rose beef. For the record, Rose is a kind of cow meat. After much had been said and done, Skipo ate the food with a gleeful heart, his health had tremediously improved. The drips attached to his body had been removed, and the nurse affirmed that he would be discharged soon, provided that he continues to take the drugs prescribed to him.

Unfortunately, he may not be allowed to leave the clinic without payment should his school admission letter not be made available as proof that he is a legit student of the varsity.

Although, Bishop had previously gone in search of the admission letter but he couldn’t locate it. Skipo then gave a better description of where he kept it in his hostel room, therefore, they set off to check again.

Both Femi and Bishop departed shortly, heading towards Dangana hostel which is just few metres away. The environment was quite a scene as students were seen playing volley ball, while others were playing football with a medium-sized goalpost on an open space. They walked closer and a heavy stench of smell was emanating from the gutters, causing an odouriferous saga. Femi who rarely visit the hostel covered his nose with his palms before suffocating to death, but he was quickly reprimanded.

“Your papa! Your mama!” A bouncer-like dude shouted from the top of the hostel. Femi soon realized that he was the one being referred to, so, he quickly retracted his hands. Bishop warned him never to make such mistake again, unless he wanted angry Dangana soldiers to transfer their aggression on him. The caveat emptor was indeed necessary because as the saying goes; to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

At the entrance of the hostel was a thriving business centre, right there one could practically market anything, ranging from stolen phones to laptops, generators et all.

“I wan sell my phone oo!” A guy wearing only boxers came from nowhere and started shouting. He kept on repeating those words in an igbotic intonation, his bold marketing strategy seemed to have attracted on lookers who wanted to see the phone.
“See the phone! Na Bold 5, very clean and neat, anybody wey give me 12k right now I go just dash am the phone” The guy bragged while giving the phone to one of the on lookers and probably a potential buyer to examine. The supposed buyer scrutinized the phone for a while, and then passed it to another person, who also passed it to another person. The phone kept changing hands all within a circle and before one could say “JACK BAUER” the phone was nowhere to be found with nobody to suspect, how it happened, nobody knew. Everyone there was stunned when they realized that the phone was missing, knowing well that the phone couldn’t have developed legs and disappear.

The owner of the phone felt the spurred to cry but he had to hold back the tears, though his eyes were blood red signifying anger, but there was absolutely nothing he could do. All along, Bishop and Femi were observing the drama as it unfolded. They couldn’t help but laugh at the doom of the phone owner who became calm all of a sudden, after people started making jest of him.

They left there afterwards and when they got to Skipo’s hostel room, they met a group of hungry guys having a Rap Battle. It was obvious that they were famished because their cooking pots were all empty, one of the occupants was actually sleeping helplessly on his hostel bunk like someone who had less than 24hrs to live. Bishop was baffled by the statement made by one of the Rapper-wannabe, insisting that they go to the studio to record the cRAP they were dishing out as RAP.

Anyways, Bishop exchaned greetings with them and went ahead to search for the admission letter which literally brought them there. Femi stood at the door observing the room and thanked his stars that his parents didn’t force him to stay in the hostel, he was wondering how he would survive in that kind of environment. Bishop later found the admission inside Skipo’s file which he kept in a drawer beside his bunk, the file contained his school information details from 100level till date.
They left almost immediately and headed back outside. Again, at the entrance, a guy was writing a notice on a carbon paper pasted on a wall which reads “Clean Tecno P5 for sale.” Immediately Bishop saw the notice, he realized that he doesn’t have a phone anymore. He walked closer to the guy and enquired how much he wanted to sell the phone. After series of bargaining, the guy agreed to sell the phone at 5k without memory card. Bishop instantly fell in love with the phone and desperate to buy it…