Beautiful Metaphor (My Final School Year)

At this point, I knew one more embarrassment or mistake I was going to directly go to my grave- I mean what's the worst that could happen to me now? It's quite clear that am no longer in good books with life and am a total wreck so am sure the storm is over- right? I thought to myself as I walked to class in the most horrible corridor I could have ever imagined myself in. am wearing a navy blue long ugly skirt, a pair of shoes that my mother had managed to borrow from my distant cousin Luneto, a worn out white shirt that am pretty sure mum just did not want to tell me that she had gotten from a goats mouth a half burnt necktie because of my lack of lack of knowledge about using the pressing iron that needs charcoal filled iron matching my skirt and to top it all off my God forsaken new spectacles that just remind me of the horrible day that led to now. "...come back to earth...come back ..." I couldn't believe I had actually hit into a person while deep in thought on my way to what was supposed to be my class. "Oh am so sorry, am so sorry sir, I didn't..." my apology wasn't worth it. " everyone is in class, can you run to class before I give you twenty strokes and a ditch to dig...!!", I did need him to finish his list of things that were probably going to wreck my life so I took to my heels going to god knows where. "Is this 12E?" I asked after knocking at the last door in the corridor on my left, the lady smiled and looked at me with eye that had something that looked like pity and shook her head. " no dear, this sis 12D, the class you are looking for is the one behind you, and try to get there soon or Mr. Makashi will ruin your first day at school." With that I just nodded and turned around hoping I got to my class fast enough to avoid the man who seemed to bring hell fire on me before I even got to my class. As I neared the door I could see the most disorganized people in my soon to be class and I figured there was no teacher yet so I sighed in relief knowing that no one will make my life more weirder by introducing me to a bunch of more weirder teenagers. When I got into the class no one seemed to pay any attention to me and I felt almost great, I spotted two empty sits somewhere in the middle of the class and I silently walked there and sat and still no one gave me attention. I was about to start feeling comfortable in 'my seat' just about a minute after I sat but suddenly there was a noisy rush among all the pupils and they seemed to all be rushing to their seats. I sat motionless knowing fully that I did not want to draw any attention to myself, but before that could happen I heard silent giggles, I tried to look around and to my surorise almost everyone was looking at me. I felt like someone was behind me so I looked up, a face that was supposed to be cute was staring at me emotionlessly and I didn't understand it. I looked at him and looked away but he did not move neither his gaze no his body so I sat silently, then slowly he moved his hand towards me and I was scared. I thought he was going to touch me or even hit me but he pointed at something right on top of the desk that caught my attention. I looked at it then looked back at him, then I looked at it again and it finally looked like a name tag that was neatly cello taped to the desk and nicely decorated with flowers around it "Warren" but still I couldn't get it. I was still too confused about why everyone was giggling and why he was so emotionless, so like an answer someone from the back quickly whispered only loud enough for me to hear it. "That's his desk, no one dares to seat there move now...." I got the hint and since the next desk was empty I decided to just move to it instead of trying to look for another one which was likely to draw attention to me and that was the last this I wanted. "Don't sit there...'' finally someone say it loud enough for the whole class to hear and this time everyone kept quiet, but I was already seated so I decided to ignore it. Everything seemed tense in the class room but I didn't know what to do anymore so I just sat quietly and bit my nails, I knew everyone was trying at me and what's more the guy who was standing next to me even after I moved from his desk keep staring at me like a hawk. I started shivering I was going into panic attack because now everything just felt too much. I couldn't handle this much pressure and these people didn't seem to notice it, they were all just wearing shocked faces as if I just sat on fire, and before I could process it all things seems blurry and it got dark. I could hear screams from a distance and soon I felt myself instead of falling the ground hands held me and laid me carefully to the ground. I woke up at 'home' and from the mattress in our room I could see my mother seated in the doorway looking at me with her eyes red, she jumped to me as soon as she saw me open my eyes almost falling on me. " my Kizita! My child you are awake, how you worried me my sunshine...am sorry you have so much to handle am sorry my child but please don't leave your poor mother you are all I have..." I zoned out as soon as she she started apologizing about how we got here in the first place. I hated it when she started such line of stories, my mother was the strongest person I had encountered and what still shocked me was her courage to continue living even though she simply had no good reason to. She had seen all lifes ugly faces and am sure if I were her, I would definitely try giving up but she never did, she smiled through it all and made funny jokes about it nomatter how many times her sisters mocked her for coming back to grandpas house after going to live in the great city. I let her have this one even, though I hated it when she acted like this, she hugged me and kissed my whole face and it brought back so many memories of her and my father. They would take turns kissing my face and let me decide who kissed me better, it was always their Friday night competition and who ever lost washed the dishes and I would spend hours telling them it was a tie because I enjoyed having them shower me with love. But right in the moment, it just felt sad, she was there, alone, kissing me just because she hoped she could make me feel better or maybe even give me more life. I said nothing, tears just flowed effortlessly and soon she noticed that her shirt was getting wet because I was crying. "Zita am here, am here don't cry child, am here and I will always be here..." its like her use of the pet name she gave me when I was young and her promise of being there always just broke us both and we cried for what seemed like eternity before we heard a male voice approach. "who has died?" grandpas voice was always calm and collected and in the past few weeks of being here I had learn to love and enjoy his calmness. He had a composure that very few men I knew had and it just melted my fears and sorrows away everytime I spoke to him. We broke apart and mum hastily rubbed off her tears with the back of her hand and stood up quickly to rush to the door so that she could offer the seat she had been siting on to grandpa as his leg was not in good condition she he did not stand for long periods of time. She silently set the chair near where I was lying and sat at my feet,and like he did not find us in a sad situation he just looked at us and chuckled to himself. " how are you feeling now young lady?" he turned his attention to me. " am okay grandpa, I just have a slight headache and I feel weak." I said simply trying to act as fin as possible. " okay then you are good to go to school tomorrow right?" he asked casually hiting his clutch on the flow. " uhmmmm no, not tomorrow.." I said sheepishly. " then when?" he asked studying my face cautiously as if trying to find an answer. " I don't want to go there grandpa...I really..." he cut me off. "now hold those thouughts right there young lady, I don't think I raised you like that. From how you look you just need tomorrow for resting and the rest of the days you will go to school, are we clear Kizita?" his voice was very stable and commanding and every cild of his in his or her right mind never argued with that voice so I simply nodded in agreement. "very well then take your rest then in the evening we can have a great chat in the living room and catch up on how you collapsed because no one has been able to explain it to us from your school." With that he got up and left the room, and I remembered just how I collapsed and it sent shivers down my spine. I pushed it away in time for me to try to figure out who hands carefully layed me down to the floor insead of hitting my head really hard the way I always do. I shrugged to myself and soon I was feeling sleepy so I left sleep take over and soon I was sound asleep. When I woke up in the evening mum brought me some food and I ,anaged to get it down my throat without throwing up. After my meal I went staright to the living room and found my cousins in there with grandpa but as usual as soon as they saw me get in they all started leaving as if I had leprosy or some crazy contagious disease . I simply shrugged and sat down next to grandpa on the old sofas that made the room look vintage and smokey, grandpa looked at me and laughed loudly at my silent question as to why they left. I sat with him the rst of the evening and my mood was revamped in less than an hour. I woke up at ‘home’ and from the mattress in our room I could see my mother seated in the doorway looking at me with her eyes red, she jumped to me as soon as she saw me open my eyes almost falling on me. “ my Kizita! My child you are awake, how you worried me my sunshine…am sorry you have so much to handle am sorry my child but please don’t leave your poor mother you are all I have…” I zoned out as soon as she she started apologizing about how we got here in the first place. I hated it when she started such line of stories, my mother was the strongest person I had encountered and what still shocked me was her courage to continue living even though she simply had no good reason to. She had seen all lifes ugly faces and am sure if I were her, I would definitely try giving up but she never did, she smiled through it all and made funny jokes about it nomatter how many times her sisters mocked her for coming back to grandpas house after going to live in the great city. I let her have this one even, though I hated it when she acted like this, she hugged me and kissed my whole face and it brought back so many memories of her and my father. They would take turns kissing my face and let me decide who kissed me better, it was always their Friday night competition and who ever lost washed the dishes and I would spend hours telling them it was a tie because I enjoyed having them shower me with love. But right in the moment, it just felt sad, she was there, alone, kissing me just because she hoped she could make me feel better or maybe even give me more life. I said nothing, tears just flowed effortlessly and soon she noticed that her shirt was getting wet because I was crying. “Zita am here, am here don’t cry child, am here and I will always be here…” its like her use of the pet name she gave me when I was young and her promise of being there always just broke us both and we cried for what seemed like eternity before we heard a male voice approach. “who has died?” grandpas voice was always calm and collected and in the past few weeks of being here I had learn to love and enjoy his calmness. He had a composure that very few men I knew had and it just melted my fears and sorrows away everytime I spoke to him. We broke apart and mum hastily rubbed off her tears with the back of her hand and stood up quickly to rush to the door so that she could offer the seat she had been siting on to grandpa as his leg was not in good condition she he did not stand for long periods of time. She silently set the chair near where I was lying and sat at my feet,and like he did not find us in a sad situation he just looked at us and chuckled to himself. “ how are you feeling now young lady?” he turned his attention to me. “ am okay grandpa, I just have a slight headache and I feel weak.” I said simply trying to act as fin as possible. “ okay then you are good to go to school tomorrow right?” he asked casually hiting his clutch on the flow. “ uhmmmm no, not tomorrow..” I said sheepishly. “ then when?” he asked studying my face cautiously as if trying to find an answer. “ I don’t want to go there grandpa…I really…” he cut me off. “now hold those thouughts right there young lady, I don’t think I raised you like that. From how you look you just need tomorrow for resting and the rest of the days you will go to school, are we clear Kizita?” his voice was very stable and commanding and every cild of his in his or her right mind never argued with that voice so I simply nodded in agreement. “very well then take your rest then in the evening we can have a great chat in the living room and catch up on how you collapsed because no one has been able to explain it to us from your school.” With that he got up and left the room, and I remembered just how I collapsed and it sent shivers down my spine. I pushed it away in time for me to try to figure out who hands carefully layed me down to the floor insead of hitting my head really hard the way I always do. I shrugged to myself and soon I was feeling sleepy so I left sleep take over and soon I was sound asleep. When I woke up in the evening mum brought me some food and I ,anaged to get it down my throat without throwing up. After my meal I went staright to the living room and found my cousins in there with grandpa but as usual as soon as they saw me get in they all started leaving as if I had leprosy or some crazy contagious disease . I simply shrugged and sat down next to grandpa on the old sofas that made the room look vintage and smokey, grandpa looked at me and laughed loudly at my silent question as to why they left. I sat with him the rst of the evening and my mood was revamped in less than an hour. Going to school had never felt this weird but I knew I had to go, I looked at my scruffy uniform and then back to the school gate and I wished I could just turn back and run home. Before my thoughts could properly form I heard my pet name called out; " hey Zita, you know class is this way right?" I looked around and discovered I was going totally the wrong way, I inwardly cursed myself for being a total freak and I looked up smiling back at Warren who seemed to slmost be beaming with happiness. "thankyou for saving me Oh knight in shining armour" I said with a wicked smile but he noticed the sarcasm in my tone . " well if it isn't the wicked witch of the east I saved, I wish I did not .." he said the last word with emphasis and we both broke into laughter. Some pupils looking at us seemed to be shocked but we didn't mind so we continued joking on our way to class. As we got on to the hallway that led to our class we met some people who I assumed were from my class because they sympathetically greeted me and asked if I was okay. I was not sure how to react to how they were treating me so I simply smiled amd told them I was okay. We entered our class and I tried to look for a seat away from the two desks that were bound to get me killed but there was none. And while I was still thinking about what I could do, the teacher came to class but I was too busy looking for a seat to notice until there was total silence. " and why are you still standing there? Wait are you a new pupil I don't think I have seen in this class now have I?" he asked. " Im looking for a seat sir and yes I'm a new pupil.." I said hoping my voice was not as shaky as I was. "what is your name? and Warren has an empty seat right..." before he could finish the whole class was murmuring and shaking their heads about something that only they could understand. " it's okay sir I will look for an empty seat .." I was seriously going to get into a panick attack again if this continued. "Zita you can come and seat here if you like until you break time then I can help you find a seat" Warren's calm but steady voice broke in and suddenly there was a dead silence in the class that I could literally feel my heart pound. I wondered how this human being that did not want me to seat on that desk a few days ago now was okay with letting me be in the seat without hesitation. I did not know what the issue about that desk was but I knew thinking about it ran a cold chill down my spine and I was not about to grow through that again. "please take the seat next to Warren and kindly help me with your full names because I need to add you to the class register, i'm Mr. Mushiki and I'm your grade teacher welcome to Lekoma High School" I nodded silently and I started walking to the seat next to Warren, as soon as I sat down I could hear huge gasps from all over the class and I was just wishing I didn't seat next to the guy that has a mystery attachment to a seat. " you have not told me your name young lady and can the whole class please keep quiet I think we have enough of your gossip for the day please" "uhmm Kizita Angela Lwenge..." and then there was loud murmurs now, I just wanted to vanish. "Pardon me, but do you mean Kizita Lwenge the only daughter of the late Finance Minister Mr. Lwenge that died in a road accident that he and his daughter was involved in?" he looked at me intently. " Yes please, that Kizita.." I almost burst out into tears but I knew I was stronger than this so I decided to keep my cool. " well I know its been 6 months but am very sorry, your father was a really good man" amd now everyones attention was on me and all their faces were filled with questions. But I knew I had to avoid all the questions, after all I wasn't yet ready to talk about this. I looked down my shoes and bit my lips so hard that I almost injured myself and quietly yet comforting I heard a very soft voice right next to me. "am so sorry for what happened to your family Kizita" Warren sympathetically said. Kizita POV I shifted uncomfortably in my "seat" and hoped that I won't get any more questions from my classmates. I mean I think everyone knew exactly what they needed to know by now; I'm a poor daddy's girl who lost her dad in a car accident, lost everything to her fathers family and now came back to the village because my mother couldn't afford the city life anymore. It didn't matter who asked, I just didn't want to be asked about it anymore. It just threw all my emotions in a bad place and I really was exhausted with all feelings at this point. I'm sure Warren noticed my uncomfortability because he looked at me, opened his mouth like he wanted to say something but his good judgment got the best of him and he closed it. "Gee thanks" I thought to myself. I really wasn't going to handle another pity party from him. I gave him a slight smile and kept quiet. The class went on and to my surprise I sort of enjoyed it, Mr Mushiki was our Mathematics teacher too so after marking the register he started teaching. Since I was in a private school before we moved here was way ahead of the current topic the class was doing so it was just revision for me. From time to time I looked around the class and saw confusion on a lot of people's faces as they tried to understand Trigonometry when it was a slice of cake for me. I won't lie Mathematics is my favourite subject so even if I wasn't ahead of the class I was probably still going to enjoy it. Growing up I was always the smartest kid in the class so even tbough I had to repeat some years because of my frequent illnesses I still managed to catch up really fast. That's why after dad passed I didn't want to wait another year to finish my secondary school level even if it was overwhelming to think about. "Ms Lwenge, did you hear what I just asked?" Mr Mushiki brought me out of my thoughts with a start. "Pardon me sir, I did not" I said nervously, I have seriously got to get it together. I can not jeep zoning out like this. I almost face palm myself. " I thought as much, I was asking if you covered this at your previous school or you need some help understanding it" he said with a small smile, he seemed so kind. "Oh, we did sir thank you" I answered almost immediately not wanting to repeat the "zoning out" incident. "Okay, great! Then you can do the exercise with the class that I'm about to give" he said and turned around to rub off what looked like examples on the black board. I simply nodded and stared at my blank notebook. I seriously need to get it together because at this rate I will not have anything to study. I was still in my thoughts when Warren spoke. " did you understand any of that greek he just wrote as examples?" He whispered. "Uh...yeah.. well not that I was listening but I know most of the stuff...why Whatsup?" I stammered. "So, Math isn't one of my favourite subjects and this man is fast so I barely got anything-" he was literally mumbling I almost laughed. "Would you like my help with the exercise? Trig is not as bad as it seems" I said confidently saving him the stress. "Sure if you don't mind" he mumbled out. We immediately got to work and in ten minutes we were done with our work and handing it in to the teacher. "Mr Sakala I'm impressed, for the first time in a long time you have handed in your work in record time. Ms Lwenge must be good influence, I'm hoping she can keep the seat?" Mr Mushiki commented as we handed in our work. I could literally feel the tension around Warren and I wondered what made the seat so special to him that everyone but i knew about. He shifted his eyes from his book to me, he seemed like he was trying to decide on it but then he walked back to his seat without a word. I decided to let it go, after all he said he will help find another seat at break time. The second period was physics with a woman that looked like she was a model. She made me remember our pastors wife in the big city, her dress code was so put together and she had this level of confidence that I didn't think anyone in this village could have. She wore a pair of blue smart pants, a white shirt and a blue pair of heels that matched her pants. For a moment I did not think I was in this village. And when she spoke everyone in the noisy class just listened and paid attention. "good morning class, Mr Mushiki tells me we hava nee pupil, Kizita if you can just stand up" she brought me out of my trance and I immediately stood up. "Okay, my name is Cecilia Haabenzu, your friends just cal me Ms Haabenzu. I'm your Physics Teacher and we have 3 classes together every week. However I also like girl time with my students so if you would like to tall about anything really just tell me" she spoke so fluently. "Alright ma'am thank you" I said hike nodding. "Okay you may take your seat, it's been nice meeting you" and with that she went ahead with the class. After Phyisics it was break time(recess) and I reminded Warren to help me find a seat but he was called to the headteachers office who turned out to be his mother so we couldn't find me a seat and he promised we could do it the following day. Class went on normally until we knocked off and as soon as the "gong" which was supposed to be the bell rang I was packing my books and ready to go. I was ready to keep to my vow of staying out of trouble so I walked out of the school immediately and once out I walked slowly "home" not enthusiastic about what awaited me- a bunch of cousins that treated me like a leper. "Zita!!" I heard someone scream my name. Then saw Warren running after me panting, I waited for him and when he got where I was standing he handed me a pencil case. "You forgot this on your desk, anyway why did you leave in such a hurry? You didn't even tell me you are going" he said between breathes. "Oh thanks, I'm sorry I made you run. I just wanted to get home soon" I said a little embarrassed. "But Cleo- oh sorry, I meant... Zita.. I'm so so sorry.... I will see you tomorrow" he walked away in a hurry. He acted so strangely I didn't even know what to think about his actions so I let him go. I really as in no mood to ask him further abou him calling me someone's name. I watched him hurry away to the direction of school then I continued my walk home. Warren POV "Why would I say that? Why would I even dare mention her name? What is wrong with me I thought I got over this" I stomped my feet as I walked back to school. I thought I was passed this until I saw her that day in class, sure she looks like a soft girl but she also looks like her. And if she is anything like her then I'm sure she is just a feisty bomb about to explode only she didn't know it yet. And she looks like her, maybe I'm just overthinking this but I know she does. Which brought me back to the conversation I had with mum during recess.