Girl in the library…and other things

A library! It’s the last place you’d expect a rendezvous of such consequences. In fact, it’s not even the huge, more sophisticated one, standing several floors in proud indifference, perhaps because it’s named after a president. It didn’t have the army of privately uniformed arrogance manning it’s lengths with the backing of bleep-bleeping anti-theft technology. Nope!

It had to be a departmental midget tucked inside a labyrinth of administrative offices. Its entire staff was composed of a bloke called Isaac. He was a nice fellow who liked his smoke but loved his drink more. He was a lonely fellow most of the semester too, because students develop a curious repulsion towards libraries until one week to exams, when the scramble to ingest printed wisdom kicks off in earnest.

It must have been the final days of exam-week given the many empty seats. I can’t tell why I was in the library that day. Definitely not to study, otherwise I wouldn’t have spotted her. A pretty, petite thing of natural yellow with a sky-blue scarf round her neck and no colour on her finger nails.

I remember that because she was scribbling stuff from three huge text books spread before her onto an A4 exercise book and the strokes of her pen intrigued me. I bet myself a can of finely chilled Red Bull that the letters of her handwriting were huge.

I was several months clean after finally dropping addictions that were gunning for my life after taking away my everything else –dignity and brain cells included. But my new-found freedom of thought –but mostly that of expression devoid of alcoholic stench –had turned me into a supremely confident bugger. Some girls actually giggled that I was funny; and clever; and sweet –and that didn’t feel terrible at all.

It was therefore not surprising, at least to myself, when I found myself nodding approval my index finger scrolled the written works I was inspecting with the bored thoroughness of a history teacher. I was also thoroughly ignoring the girl, who was in turn, inspecting me in confusion. Then I faced her to deliver the verdict and my…?!

Those were the hugest pair of female eyes I had ever been so close to. They were magnificent. Me, I’ve always loved oversize bulbs. Big, open and truthful. That’s what they are. But only in a girl. Boys with bursting eye sockets are either high, recovering from a high or thirsty for one.

Anyways, when I was sufficiently recovered, I installed my thin form on a seat next to hers and asked for her number. She said no by sending the expansive peepers into a hard roll round the sockets. I swear I could hear the grinding noise inside the giant housing as the baby-white balls tumbled around. It was the most beautiful eye-roll I ever saw. So I picked her phone from the table and called myself.

In a few minutes, I learnt she was still holed up at the ‘Box’. Those privy with The University accommodation arrangements will know this famous girls’ hostel. I asked who she was sleeping with that she had been allowed a longer stay since I was privy to information that Module II folks had been kicked out a week before. She said the caretaker was agreeable to the proposition. I nearly believed her.

Then we had a thoroughly refreshing session analysing sex, what it is and what it’s not. She had the confidence of a bull fighter, I tell you. And not just that, she had beauty, brains and a sense of humour sharp enough to grasp my deepest jokes.

And that wasn’t all, her mouth was gifted with decibels, interesting content and my favourite, laughter that came out ever so effortlessly. But perhaps the most striking allure was a charm around her you could almost touch. I had not met the like of her before. And the more we talked, the more I got the impression that finally, I may have found my mother a daughter-in-law.

Okay, I lie! I was a young fellow in the University. Like the rest, my blood flowed red from lust. So the more we talked, the more blood the big head above lost to the historic trouble maker downstairs. By the time we left the library, my foggy thinker had gone ahead to ready the venue for the fun I anticipated ahead.

Well, no one had taught me that the easiest looking are usually the toughest to crack. It was months my friends before I even received a brotherly peck on the forehead. By then, I had done stuff I never imagined I’d ever do in the name of a girl, including attending church regularly.

Yep, Sundays found me warming the back benches of St Andrew’s PCEA church because she happened to sing in the choir. I don’t mind church but me and PCEA have never struck a chord.

But what do you know? In the end, persistence ensnared for my dad’s girlfriend the best daughter-in-law I could ever find her, probably. And since I’ve never been a bloke to dilly dally when a prayer is answered, my mom soon became a grandmother. Three years later, I pulled a similar fete for my father-in-law’s girlfriend.

It’s been several years since that eventful day inside Isaac’s library. A period during which she has seen me take a fall, make mistakes. It is a stretch she has questioned her decisions, said, “This is all I can take!”, but then gone ahead to pick and dust me.

I have often marvelled that perhaps I married a wizard because putting up with me must require extra-human powers.

They are years that we both have had to acknowledge that we are not perfect. Yet we are here, in our imperfect glory, forming our own special love story. Two imperfect parts it seems, perfect for each other.

And through this imperfect blog post, I wish you a very Happy Birthday Evelyne Wangui Kimathi, my rock of Gibraltar, the best mistake I ever made.

Please help me wish a woman so brave, she dared bank on me, a happy birthday on the comments section below. Thanks in advance folks…(insert smiling emoji)!