When I woke up that morning, I woke up with more determination to find her if she is was really on this earth.
I swore everybody could see that I was in an happy mood throughout that day because I was smiling at every tiny joke that was dropped even the ones that were not funny.
Within the blink of an eye we got into the second year and some of us could now sit down with both asses on the chair. One afternoon during one of our boring lectures, I was sitting beside this chocolate black guy, Dickson Micheal the one that came from Nigeria and instantly liked the guy. We chatted throughout the lecture and I later promised him that I will come by his hostel that Saturday which I fulfilled and with that we became friends.
Dickson Micheal and I became friends to the extent that you can't see one without the other one around. We chatted. We laughed. We read. We fought. We talked. My best discussion with him was always when he talked about his country which I fell in love with immediately and not because I wanted to but because it felt natural to do.
My twenty first birthday was celebrated at a far away bar from the school premises and I invited few people whom I knew were not going to be busy, but I should have known that bars and drinks were not my thing because it wasn't long before I started shouting Cynthia's name. Telling her to come. That I missed her.
I woke up the next morning with an heavy headache in an unfamiliar environment but soon realized that I wasn't alone.
"Micheal. Michael"
"Yes" he said through sleep.
"Wake up Michael" and with that he forced himself into a sitting position.
"What are we doing here?"
"Are you really asking me what we are doing here after everything you did last night"
"What do you mean everything I did last night?"
"Tao seo I'm your friend but you frightened the shit out of me last. I've never seen you out of control like that"
"What do you mean out of control? What did I do last night?"
"I will just advise you to forget about it"
"No. Please. Michael don't do me like this because I won't have one single rest if I don't know what happened last night"
"Okay. You told me that girl on your phone gallery was just a girl you created through your drawings but it seems like I don't really understand what you told me that time. Let me just ask you a question. Who is Cynthia?" I could not understand a word he was saying because of the headache I had which felt as if someone was intentionally ringing a bell in my head but the mentioned of Cynthia's name made everything came back to me in a rush. How I had stood up calling for Cynthia. How I had walked toward Cynthia or maybe it wasn't Cynthia. How a guy had rushed toward me and punched me and then the rest was blank.
"Tao seo I'm talking to you. Who is Cynthia?"
"Never mind, I was just drunk"
"I mind. I'm your friend"
"Okay promise me you aren't going to say I'm crazy even though what I'm about to tell sound crazy"
"Okay. Promise"
"There is this girl I uses to dream of" I paused trying to see his reaction but none came. "Okay"
"She is Cynthia. She is an African or maybe American African but my mind always says she is from Africa. I've been dreaming of her since I was little. I use to dream about her mostly once in a year but sometimes twice. It complicated. I can't explain more than that. You can't understand"
"It's okay"
"Aren't you going to say something?" I asked raising an eye brow.
"Seriously I don't know what to say. It's kind of sounds crazy as you've said earlier" he said smiling and that was when I realized that he wasn't going to judge me or criticized my dream.
"Whatever"
In July that year, I had another dream and the dream confused me because we had never used a location twice. So right now I was on the exact field we used almost two years ago and even though there were little changes on it I still knew it was the exact one we used. Seconds later I saw Cynthia coming from that angle she came from the first time we were here. She was walking slower than she did the last time and I eagerly rushed toward her but stopped when I saw her face.
She looked tired as if she had been trekking from a very long distance and I gripped her before she could fell. "Cynthia. Cynthia" I called panicking. It took her several seconds before raised her head weakly with a fake smile on her face.
"Tao seo" she called slowly.
"Yes I'm here Cynthia"
"I missed you"
"I missed you more. Cynthia. What is going on? Why a you like this?
"Don't worry about me"
"Why won't I? You are my friend"
"I'm so happy to hear that from you" she said smiling happily but weakly.
"So tell me. What is wrong?"
"Everything is wrong. I'm weak"
"What do you mean you are weak?" I asked trying to hid my fear.
"I'm inexperienced"
"What are you saying?"
"Let talk about you?" she said trying to change the subject but I wasn't through with her yet.
"Let talk about you" I knew she heard me but she pretended not to
"How are your lectures?"
"Happy birthday in arrears" I said dodging her question.
"Thanks" she said with no grain of smile.
We chatted like that for hours and everything seems to be about me. I wish to know more about her but she was ignoring my questions with a sad face.
Waking up doesn't mean I will forget the event of that dream because Cynthia had scared the shit outta me. The first thing I did was to note down everything I knew about her. Not that I haven't done it before but I wanted to know if I was making any progress. And even with the notes, I was still unable to connect any dot. I even did some research like Cynthia and Lilian, Cynthia and Lilly' but got no result closed to my research.