Achiaw couldn’t even cough for the undeserved mucus to make a hay of a curtail. He was born actually at midnight but not last night. Sleeping in darkness was not a yardstick for his life-emitting madness. The country’s current energy crisis which is more than an amnesty manifesto which has made the entire college hall very uncomfortable to live in.
He snores in the bed like he is being chased by an angry ant. He coughs continuously and flings his hand here and there. This sudden gestures woke twenty three-year-old Achiaw. He grumbled a smile and stretched his muscular full length of his body on the wooden bed which creaked noisily in silence.
As he begun to doze again he is anxious of the exams ahead of him on that day. Like a blind un-blind man he stretched his hands for a candle to light up the room. The time was 3:40 a.m. With a yell he woke from the bed and stretched his half slept body in the air. Yawning angrily like a dog injected with urine of a hen. The sound of dark night was moving away from him actually.
No teacher trainee in the men’s hall was awake as at the time so fear stood like a giant in him. Reading a pamphlet at this time of the day was not more than a log for one’s head to carry, tearing the eye to see a phrase with a piece of candle in the books was more than a curse. He flung pages by pages but his effort seems to be diminished by the blowing cooled air.
His head doze off like a duck in a pool of mud. Slowly, deceitfully, his head was found again on the pillow. Achiaw quickly leapt from his bed and was about to flee like he was chased by some cattle in his dream when his roommate, Akuffo grabbed him in his strong hand.
“Hey, Achiaw, look here. What’s chasing you?”
He struggled briefly in Akuffo’s arms before he calmed down like a castrated pig from the north. He breathed heavily and turned his head from side to side as if he has casted with a spell. He later saw his roommate gazing at him in bewilderment.
“The exams, Akuffo I’m half prepare,” he lamented as he looked around.
Akuffo cried, “The one who is half prepared had already won half of the battle. Achiaw, relax and take a bath shortly.”
It was an hour for the start of the exams and the men’s hall looked quiet serine for a while. The hall full to capacity of halfly-disastrous trainees. Achiaw quickly brushed his teeth and refused to take a bath. Offinso College of Educatiosn auditorium was far away from the men’ hall and he needed to be there in thirty minutes time, prior to the exams – as according to the examination rules from the University of Cape Coast.
He will be considered an ex-convict. Walking like a furious giant, Achiaw was nothing but blunted knife which could not even slice a loaf. From a distance he saw the roof of the college auditorium and his countenance could spell nothing but delight and a sense of relief.
His heart beats like a drum and his skin was sweating like he is from the Chemini.
The Majority of the students seemed to be seated and a few lazy ones, like himself, were jerking in panting. At long last he was at the auditorium and needed to be scrutinized for foreign materials which he was once suspected of for his look as a student. It was three minutes to the exams and all the candidates seemed prepared for the exams to take off.
“Where is your student identity card please?” asked Mr Nantwi, the exams officer of the college. Achiaw stood like he was a monument with his mouth agape. Mr Nantwi asked him for the second time and he begun scrutinizing his pockets for it. In a minute he started sweating like a sheep.
“I forgot of it sir,” he said in a low tone. Mr Nantwi, retorted.
“Then I’m sorry you need to come along with that, I hope you are aware of the rules and regulations.”
The plead of Achiaw could not even convince the pen that he owned to sit for the exams. He looked back and imagines of the distance he needed to cover to get the identity card and in his eyes it looked to him like thirty miles away. As the siren rung for the exams to start, his heart fell to the ground. Terror stood in his eyes.
He ran down the hill like he was in a race with Usain Bolt. Once a runner for Okomfo Anokye High School, he could only focus on nothing but the card. After ten minutes of a hasty chase was his card on the floor of his room. The hall was like a cemetery. His return to the auditorium seemed to be like a sheep in chase for a bone, aimless. As he got there the time left was a minute.
The exam was noted as one with ease.
Achiaw flung through the pages of the exam paper and his fate was doom. He could only write his index number and the siren rung for a close. Tears stood in his eyes. With agony he stood as his colleagues chatted with joy. He looked at the question paper and saw a note.
Don’t answer any question.
He flung his hands and was shouting as he rejoiced. The whole student body looked at him with surprise. Achiaw took off his clothes and danced openly as the students stared at him. Mr Nantwi, stared at him and said in a high tone.
“I knew he was mad.”
Upon lifting the exams paper in the air it drove the student’s attention to the paper. The majority of the students again looked at the paper with a trust and found the instruction which instructed them not to answer any question on the question paper. Mr Nantwi, upon noticing the instruction, said in a low tone, “I now know why people keep walking.”