“ Do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.” Hebrews 10:15

That day in Room H20 he forgot how to breathe and I missed the evening when Abakaliki unpacks into a scene of women hurriedly wanting to enter Keke, children yelling from the hardness of sponge on their skin, men setting tables in bars, and many like my father slumping into beds after a long day. I missed this for a scene where a man forgets how to breathe on the happiest day of his life. 

He was rewarded before a crowd of guilty-looking students yearning for answers to the number of worries while diving into scriptures and meditation books.

This is how it happened or this is how my ịsị remembers:

He starts his prayer like a prophet; one of those prophets who never let us do our reading on the campus. They come around with bells ringing from ear to ear whining about fornicators and cultists. But he was a little different from the prophets. He raised his voice frenziedly and slowed down when his voice was dry to say a chided amen unlike the gibberish kaba kaba and spit pouring the other campus prophet did. He wore skinny trousers with washed snickers and had the haircut of a "Modest boy." He wore striped suits on Tuesdays, a pair of glasses on Thursdays, and sometimes on Fridays, he alternated between a trio-ethnic attire of Ishiagu, babban riga, and a filá. But whatever it was he wore, he looked better than the white flowing garments accompanied by bells enhancing their stagger- a make-believe of the possession of the spirit. This should be why Dalu fell for him, he might have said amen to every kiss he gave her. He might have said a prayer for her loud moans. He might have given a verse for her near-perfect figure that glistened under the tiny flash of lights of the full moon that rested on the Louvered windows. Nke ọ bụla! He just didn't look like the rest.

When he said his "Ụmụ Chukwu praise God" amidst the dullness of this gathering of students who probably had testimonies to tell about how a lecturer had kept them for years and they had finally won by passing, I found his voice very fruity- like a concerted musicality that raises the soul. But Dalu's voice comes playing against his  

"He calls me master plan... I do it well more than anyone." She whispers distracting me from the scripture he is about to read.  

“He said if I come today for this fellowship, we might move things to the next level. Just imagine, I am the one moving to the next level." 

Her giggles land on my ear like glass breaking. It moves fast around my eardrums that I do not hear him say the next prayer. He sings now like one of the angels in the Bible. Michael or Raphael or any of them giving glory to God. His tongue sticking out and rolling back like a foot mat while he does a high note on the "He never fails me, lord." That tongue must have suckled Dalu's breast and rolled back easily with no qualms. When the rest of the students were deep in tears, shaken by the tone of the songs, broken into many parts of their worries, I sat. I didn't see him sing- I saw images Dalu had let my mind create. His sweat trickled down his purple T-shirt and soaked his shoulders so that his muscles were visible. I remember now, the other part of Dalu's story. "When I squeeze his muscles and sniff the stiffness, he becomes weak. He breaks into tiny pieces of dried leaves." Dalu could call a man mad and he would smile, Dalu could make a man smile with her water- is- separate-from- oil- food, he would still laugh and hold Dalu like a holy grail. Now, Dalu steals a line from a poem I wrote to describe the fragility of a man who was pacing the raised podium like he was ready to steal life from a person. She steals to stick images in my head of this vibrating Broda See All crush into leaves.  

" I will burn it."

"What?"

"The poem"

"Why?” She asks half closing her eyes. Half looking at me like she had been following the prayers.

"I will imagine him while reading it."

She shrugs. She shrugs! Dalu just shrugs. Such a queen.

 Her story was telling itself in my head while he sang that worship. Hot air slammed my face as the worship intensified. Hands were up, and people flailing like their lives were more difficult than being hungry. Squeezed faces, sweat drizzling and raised voices of pain and frustration filling the air. 

They call him Broda See All. He knows every line of the bible. He carries the anointing that makes Dalu tremble, he floors the students with his prophecy. He makes prophecies of " A's" and sprinkles of "C's" for the students who don't read the bible enough. I like to think I am here because of Dalu or honestly, because I wanted to see the reaction of Broda See All when Dalu gives this testimony. 

She hurriedly raises her hands to be the first to make the testimony. Her smile gleamed more than the other students. She adjusts her floral gown, dusts off imaginary dust, and cries Jesus. The crowd follows her, I see their eyes rest on her oval face, their bodies twitch from the discomfort of Dalu’s aura, and some bite their lips. Dalu is not the girl you like ọsịsọ - she is the kind whose Beauty causes wahala and you simply hate her because you think she is undeserving of beauty.

"Praise the Lord oooo." She raises her hand and fans it till the crowd gets the information except Broda See All 

"He proposed. I will not be single. May God do it for you."

Dalu is about to give details of the proposal in the usual way testifiers do when he starts coughing.

Broda See All is there- his face unable to catch the truth. He adjusts the tie on his neck, I see his face contouring into curses to spill. He coughs loudly that Dalu's testimony is interrupted before the crowd claps. He almost falls to the ground but the boys get him quickly. They pour him water, they unbuckle the suits, they ask people to leave, and he keeps clutching his chest. Dalu stands there in the pool of her testimony that snatched a once vibrant man's happiness.

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