WHATEVER, POLICE OFFICER

Ten.

ADAMAWA STATE, NIGERIA.

Fatima smiled at a cute Arabian couple she's been obsessing over for the past week. She's never been intrigued with couples' lives or anything relatively close but when she's stumbled on them on Instagram, she stalked them from their first video till the end and whenever they release a new one, she is always there to watch and smile. That became her routine because they post twice everyday. At least, she's got something interesting apart from repeats.

Mostly, they perform weird couple stuff for their viewers to enjoy and sometimes dive deeper into their lives and pour out feelings Fatima never made sense of. How can love be so blind and feelings be so convoluted? She always question whether things like that really happen in real life or they just exaggerate it to make people feel intrigued like she feels. She wants to know what that feeling is but at the same time extremely afraid of going to that territory!

Gauging out her own philosophy alone, a student came to stand in front of her visibly frightened to talk to her but as if thinking more into who sent him, he opened his mouth and greeted her then. . . "The Dean wants to see you immediately, Miss Fatima."

She detected the Yoruba accent immediately but distinguished the thought, it is irrelevant. Why would the Dean want to see her when he's never cared about what she does in the school ever since she turned down his offer on a date years ago?

"I'll be there now." She dismissed her phone and all thoughts of the Arabian couple then stood up to go see the Dean even though she is not one to comply on orders, this has her attention fully.

Walking her way to the Dean's office, she didn't bother knocking but just walked in. Why knock when he called for her attention in the first place? He knows she is coming so whatever it is he is doing that won't be suitable for her to see will be admonished immediately. Her eyes bounced on the walls in the room before settling on the bald man behind a large desk.

The large desk is ladened with usual office supplies such as stick notes, calculator, pens, stapler, paper pads, his name plate embroidered with golden italics -Dr. Sani Baba- a drinking cup filled with water. There are notes and art works of students that want good credit hanging on his walls and some of his family photos. A family of five in his early fifties wants a relationship with her back then, she doesn't know of now. Things were about to proliferate when his wife found out but Fatima turned him down in front of the woman, since then, they never talked.

Condemning the phone ringings, footsteps of students rushing to their next classes, students and teachers arguing about marks, papers getting shuffled on in the hallway, some jobless guys playing football outside, she squared her gaze on his steady ones. She didn't miss the look of appreciation that passed through his eyes which she didn't like. He has no right to do so neither does anyone!

She is only wearing a rouge Dolce & Gabbana shirt, it's sleeves long and the neckline is Victorian while her long legs are encased in dark Calvin Klein skinny jeans and a jean jacket atop the whole outfit. Like always, she's expertly tied her crinkled cotton veil with the recent trend of turban she's seen. Students in the school always copy her style when she's abandoned them, she didn't mind at all.

She made her way to sit at one of the two chairs facing him, not waiting for permission to do so. "You called for me, Sir."

He leaned closer to the desk and clasped his wrinkled hands together, showing protruding veins. His eyes are surveying her with keen interest that did not sit well with her and she started counting one to ten, if he doesn't stop with those eyes and talk to her straightforward, she will snap at him and leave the office. She is done with men, she's seen and dealt with a lot of them lately. First with rude American, a professor and now the Dean?