THE SMILING FAIR GIRL ON GLASSES

It was in the second semester of my first year in the university; I thought I had hit a fortune when one day, in night class, I looked up from the book I was studying and saw a beautiful girl on glasses smiling at me. She was smiling so confidently and unabashed that my looking up had not changed anything. It felt good but at the same time, it was strange. So I decided to keep reading my book. I looked up again after a few minutes, this time she was neither looking at me nor smiling; she was reading her own book. After a while, I caught her looking at me and smiling, all over again and I began to think this girl might just like me. And of course I thought I liked a girl who could smile first to me because at that point in my life, not too many girls were smiling at my over-serious life.

I started thinking of how to strike a conversation and become friends with her. I wrote a note, telling her to please come back to that same hall to read the next day that I’ll love to have a talk with her, but I decided against it. I thought of going to meet her and starting a conversation but something held me back and I couldn’t. Torn between reading my book and indecision, morning came and we all went home and I did not say a word to her again.

The next day, I returned to that hall with the hope of finding the smiling fair girl on glasses. My going to night class that day was more about seeing the girl than reading. But she wasn’t there. I had arrived around 9pm, determined to talk to this girl who had been seriously smiling at me the previous night, but she was no where to be found. What could it be? I asked myself. Could it be that opportunity comes but once as they say? Could it be that that yesterday which I saw her was the only chance I would get? Maybe I should wait a little, maybe I should read my books as I waited, I thought. I couldn’t read as the thought of the fair smiling girl on glasses filled my head. Soon, I dozed off with thoughts of her floating all over my head and in my dreams till I awoke a little past one in the early morning and saw, three seats before me, the fair girl on glasses once more. She was sitting in a position such that her back was to the blackboard, and she faced me directly and immediately she saw me, she began smiling again. This time around, my heart quaked and I began to get the impression that I might be in love with either her or her smile. But all the liver which I had gathered, with which to talk to her had gone to sleep with me and not awoken with me. So I just watched her and smiled back at her.

It was 5am and we began packing to go home and I had not talked to the smiling fair girl on glasses. And the realization hit me from a certain angle that relayed to me that there might not be a clear cut opportunity again. I realized that she might not keep smiling at me forever. What if she saw somebody else who she liked and started smiling at him and then when I go talk to her, she ditches me saying, “Bye boy, you missed your greenlight, there is no more invitation left for you.”? What if that happens?

So I packed my books inside my bags after she had left the class and I followed her as the sharp guy that I was who did not want to hear stories. I followed her sharply even though my heart was failing me. She walked all the way from hall 18 to the staircase by hall 15 and 16. I gave some space to her so she wouldn’t notice because I wasn’t still sure of what to say. She came down from the staircase and she crossed and started heading towards the Law faculty. I followed her even as she took a turn towards the girls hostel and all of a sudden, she turned back. There I stood transfixed, our eyes locked. It was like catching a thief red handed. I couldn’t feign anything. And so I asked her out of confusion, if she knew me from somewhere. And she replied nicely that she did not. Encouraged, I told her I was asking because she had been smiling at me in the classroom for the past two nights.

And she smiled, “Wow! Really, I wasn’t really smiling at you! I was just looking over your head and smiling trying to imagine a scenario.”
I was smiling this time at her because I knew she was lying. And I had read somewhere that the best way to handle people when they lied is to maintain an eye contact with them while smiling. She must have noticed it when she said, “Come on, I’m sorry. I hope my smiling didn’t disturb you?” I said it did not, that she had a very beautiful smile on the contrary. She smiled and blushed and said thank you. At that point, I could feel our hearts connecting. I asked her if she lived in the Girls hostel and she said she did. I told her my name and she told me hers was Matilda. I asker her if she would come to night class that night and she said she would.

I went to my hostel and narrated to my pals how I had gotten a new girlfriend and how cute she was on her glasses. How sure I was she was a first class material, how she was taller than their girlfriends and how I was going to bring her home in a fortnight. Everywhere I went afterwards that day, in the lecture hall, in the cafeteria, in the hostel, there was one thing on my mind: the smiling fair girl on glasses.

Then on my way to hall 18 to read that evening, I sighted from afar, Matilda talking to one of my friends in the faculty. I knew his girlfriend, so I was almost sure nothing of that sort could be between them. I decided to wait for the both of them to finish discussing then, I would follow her up. But unfortunately, another female friend of hers came over and they went upstairs together. So I went over to my friend instead and asked him how he knew the girl, Matilda. He asked me if I knew her too and I said, yes. We got talking about her, and I began asking basic questions and that was how the young man told me that Matilda was a final year Law student who was as a matter of fact, in her last semester in the school...

All the gusts which had been swelling in me was punctured at the moment and all the surging zeal I had for Matilda became flaccid. My brain turned 360° and did a mathematics of where I was at the time when Matilda was in first year and how I had been chasing the winds since. I thought that it didn’t matter if she had been smiling at me; she was not my mate and my ego had crashed. I told my friend I would see him later. I walked with heavy legs to hall 19 downstairs, where I wouldn’t see her. There, I fell asleep in grief and did not wake up till people started coming to school the next morning. I never went to hall 18 again that semester and when I did in subsequent semesters, I never ever saw Matilda again.