I wrote this story about two or three years ago, and, without presenting it for any critical appraisal, promptly published it on my sub-domain mollusco..

Today, I published it on my wordpress blog: mollusco.

Here it is on nairaland.

N5000! Rahmon’s head raced. N5000! Why, he could make – he quickly calculated – fifty trips to the eatery, Jesus Embassy, before the end of the semester, discounting the additional fives he would have to shell out for pure water. But N5000!

Now, Rahmon Salami was a wily, wiry, usually wrought-up creature who didn’t believe half of every negative thing said about him. Indeed, he didn’t believe half of every thing said by anybody about anything, and the half he believed could easily be attributed to the quality of his modesty (at least, so he believed). You would never earn his acquaintanceship if you told him he had small nose, huge lips, drooping chin or big eye-sockets from where he squinted at every one. But, you could be forgiven. You would never earn his acquaintanceship if you told what every body else had observed as the most remarkable feature of his appearance: that his left ear was small but his right ear was big. Plus, you would never be forgiven.

Rahmon knew about propriety. He knew and perfectly understood the logic behind the universal postulations in support of righteous deeds. There was nothing you could tell the man about the rewards of evil machinations. He knew every one of them, and these were the few good points that could be counted in his favour. Mr. Salami’s intelligence had a firm grasp on good and evil. Mr. Salami only could not tell where good stopped and evil began.

“N5000 sounds good to me,” he declared morosely to the young man standing in front of him, the man who was giving him the coupon to the first N5000 he would make in his life. Happy or sad, Rahmon was always morose. “But, N10000 would sound even better.”

The young man’s mouth opened on its own accord.

“Are you mad?” The young man demanded. His name was Luke but every body who knew him on campus – and there couldn’t be ten of them since he seldom showed his face in classes – called him Jukebox, or Juke. “N10000? Do you suppose I’m asking you to come and write GMAT on my behalf?”

“Look, Paul, think of one thing,” One of Rahmon’s ways of proving the superior advancement of his intelligence to that of others was to call Paul what every body else called pal

“What?”

“The risk.” Rahmon scratched his drooping chin absent-mindedly. “See, GMAT would even have been better.”

For the second time, Juke’s mouth fell open but this time, his tongue stuck out too.

“Jesus!” he rasped. Gab! He shook his head inwardly. To think Gab recommended this mad man to him! Gab! The guy’s sanity would soon surely snap under the strain his crazy actions were putting his mental balance. Believe this and you would believe anything. Believe recommending this mad man to him…

“Look, Paul,” Rahmon said, totally oblivious of his suitor’s reactions, “worse thing that could happen with GMAT is that you could be arrested…”

“And sitting for an internal exam is worse than that?” Juke was a picture of incredulity.

Rahmon squinted at him.

“Sure. You could get rusticated. And if you were to be one down against luck, you could get expelled. Look, Paul, the police were bound to release you sooner or later. All you need is to know what palm to oil. But Paul, you get sent out of this school and you don’t get the benefit of a second chance.”

“But at what price? N10000?”

Rahmon scratched his chin once more.

“You are very passionate about this, huh?”

“Passionate?” It was almost as if Juke only just heard the word for the first time in his life. Passionate! Can you please look at this guy?

“Yes, passionate. Look, Paul, there is nothing to be ashamed of …”

“I’m not ashamed.”

“I haven’t said you are.”

“And my name is not Paul”

“Look, Paul, this is taking rather too much time. Pay the money now and then sit back and watch your result roll in.”

“I’m certainly not paying you N10000,” Juke turned round. “I’ll get somebody else.”

A sudden storm of panic seized and nearly swept Rahmon off his feet. In that instant, his left ear actually got smaller and his right got bigger. Fifty trips to Jesus Embassy…

“And just where are you going?”
He asked strongly, feelingly.
Juke paused.

“What kind of question’s that?” he said “I’m going to get someone who is ready to do the job and who isn’t going to bill my head off.”

“Now, Paul, now, a moment, a moment,” Rahmon stepped closer to him, squinting at him irascibly, “I hate being cheated out of my fee.”

“What cheat? What fee?”

“Look, Paul,. Look…”

“My name is not Paul!”

“I know, Paul. Pay the five. That’s what I said. Pay the five grand and watch your result roll in. what’s wrong in that, Paul?”

The paper for which Rahmon Salami was staking his career was FIN 321, Qualitative Analysis of Financial Decisions, facilitated by no less a personage than the illustrious Professor Willy Iyiemagbor. Professor Willy had a reputation in University of Lagos, or in the Faculty of Business Administration where he held sway as a departmental head: he had more expulsions to his credit than any other lecturer in the whole faculty.

Rahmon’s decision, taken rashly and at the urging of his devastating hunger for those trips to Jesus Embassy, was a foolish one at best. He was in his final year. If he got caught, the four years he’d spent in the school, the money, the pride and the influence which his parents now commanded on their street, all would come to naught.

As Rahmon squeezed himself into a seat in FBA Room 10, these thoughts cruised round his mind. As yet, it hadn’t occurred to him that he had undertaken to commit an offence, what in the conservative sphere of religion could be termed as an evil deed. Although, to be fair, he had an inkling that what he was about to do could be foolish or else what was he dreading being caught for? Now, that was a scary thought, right there. What if he was caught? What if one of the lecturers suddenly recognized him as a student of the department, certainly, but not one that had any business being in Room 10 at this time? What then?

Some beads of sweat formed on his huge upper lip. He came to a decision: he wouldn’t let that happen.

He sat by the railing. Two seats to his right (at least a seat was always left unoccupied between candidates during exams), a scruffy, sweaty boy – he couldn’t have been more than a boy, say 17, Rahmon determined – was chewing frantically on his pen. He looked worse than nervous.

“Get a hold of yourself, man,” Rahmon snapped at him.

The boy turned to look at Rahmon and mumbled ‘sorry’. Rahmon shook his head and looked at his watch. He was nervous too but he wasn’t about to become a shot of a rolling nervous ball over it. When would they bring the paper for Mary’s sake?

They brought the paper for the sake of the students at10:00 amprompt. The moment Rahmon got his, he delved into it. To every ‘Psst!’ of the boy, summoning him for assistance, Rahmon could not afford the generosity to give him even a cranky squint.

“Photocard, please.”

Rahmon continued writing furiously, completely disregarding the palm which the invigilator, a lecturer from another department, thrust in his direction. He looked at the question and wrote some more.

“Photocard!” the lecturer bawled with forced authority and hurt dignity.

Rahmon gave him the card with crooked arm, thus forcing the lecturer to stretch painfully, almost tumbling across the boy and the empty seat to get it.

The lecturer was totally mad with annoyance. He stood there glaring at the ugly head of Rahmon, but for all his effort, he only managed to win utter indifference from him.

There were a few titters in the room, adding to the lecturer’s embarrassment and fury.

Damn it all, the lecturer said to himself and snatched a glance at the card. He should toss the card on the floor. That would teach the impudent, ugly, little sod to disrespect a lecturer in the future.

Actually, the lecturer almost suited his action to his thought before he unceremoniously realized that there was something odd in the whole affair. This time, he took a long look at the card and a longer one at the supposed bearer of the picture in the card. The lecturer, Doctor Adelami, just could not help it: his whole face contorted into a wide smirk.

“Luke James!” he called. Rahmon continued writing. He had forgotten his name. He had forgotten that in that room, he had swapped Rahmon for Luke. “Luke James, or is that not your name?”

Something, call it intuition if you like, warned Rahmon that he was indeed the one addressed, and he squinted at the lecturer with a combination of ill temper, anger and fear.

“Yes?”

Doctor Adelami had his fill of Rahmon’s features, subconsciously compared it to the smiling face staring up at him from the photo card and told himself quite satisfactorily that here at his disposal was an examination cheat.

The lecturer wriggled round the boy (who was again chewing on the end of his pen frantically), round the empty seat and grabbed Rahmon’s question paper and answer booklet with his left hand where he had the photo card while at the same time grabbing the collar of Rahmon’s shirt with his right. All these he accomplished in less than five seconds.

“What, sir, is the meaning of this?” Rahmon queried biliously.

“The meaning of this,” the doctor said, yanking up the student without warning, “is that you are about to see first hand what respect examination cheats command around here. Step out, my friend.”

“Examination cheats? Nonsense!”

But Rahmon, who at that moment felt nothing at all like the Doctor’s friend, did step out

One hour later, he was in a mini-conference with three lecturers: Doctor Adelami, Prof. Rakia and Prof. Willy.

The demeanour of each of the lecturers was at variance with the others’. Dr. Adelami was smug. Prof. Iyiemagbor was furious and sad. Prof. Rakia was both disgusted and bored.

Rahmon looked on with unhidden indignation.

Iyiemagbor held the photo card a mile away from the foot-thick lens of his spectacles. He looked from it to Rahmon’s face and back to it.

“Why did you do this?” He asked Rahmon. “Why did you do this in my course?”

It was obvious to all that Willy was not as much pained that Rahmon had violated the School’s examination rule as he was that he could do so in his own course.

“Do sir?” Rahmon wondered. “With all due respect, but do what? As far as I can see, I wasn’t allowed to finish my paper. I don’t think you can sit there accusing me of doing what you’ve not allowed me to do fully.”

“Oh, you see,” Dr. Adelami literally jumped in barely concealed happiness, “you see, sir, he’s admitting it. He’s admitting to examination malpractise!”

“Of course, I admit it.”

“You admit it?” Willy was almost in tears. “You admit to being caught performing an act of examination malpractice in my course?”

Rahmon shook his head.

“You got it wrong sir,” he told the three of them. “I admit that there was an examination malpractice. Yes. He,” nodding in the general direction of the Doctor, “didn’t allow me to finish my paper. If that’s not an examination malpractice, sir, then, I’ll like to be enlightened on the theme.”

Adelami could have slapped Rahmon on the spot if he was standing within a foot of him. His hand itched; rage tore at him from every point of his physique. The tautness of his sinews bore testament to how much he felt riled. What unpardonable insolence!

He took a step toward Rahmon.
“Could you,” he began, “possibly be insinuating that you were not impersonating somebody in that examination hall today?”

Rahmon looked at him as if he could not believe that a lecturer with a doctorate degree could be that stupid. The contempt the two professors saw in Rahmon’s look made them wonder if perhaps Adelami could be guilty of a little idiocy.

“Could you,” Rahmon returned with remarkable condescension, “be insinuating that a man could possibly impersonate himself?”

For an instant, even Doctor Adelami doubted his own good judgement.

Prof. Rakia stirred from his boredom and asked Willy to let him have one more look at the picture. He wanted to be sure which stand to take.

Here was the face in the photo card, truly, all well-rounded, good-looking and fair complexioned. Here was the fellow claiming to be in the picture, well, disproportionately-featured, ugly even beyond revulsion and, well, dark as they come. Here was the crux of the issue: how did one account for this glaring lack of symmetry?

He cleared his throat and the other three men in the room turned to him as one. Prof. Rakia tried to fix his gaze on Rahmon’s face but because he was not aware of the discrepancy of nature that registered scorn on Rahmon’s face as a permanent fixture of his countenance whenever he felt a flicker of hope where there ought to be none, Prof. Rakia could not succeed.

“Young man,” the Professor said, shifting his eyes from Rahmon to Adelami, “there’s a problem here. There are some things here that certainly don’t agree. For instance, this man in the picture,” he held the card up for the benefit of the room, “is obviously fair-skinned while you’re of darker tan.”

Rahmon would not have it.

“That can be explained,” he said. “The change in complexion is as a result of my experiment with some facial creams.”

“That’s nonsense!” Doctor Adelami bellowed. “There’s no cream yet that changes a man from being light-skinned to dark-skinned!”

When Rahmon turned the compliment of his abominable squint to the Doctor, the two Professors could see that Adelami needed rescuing.

Willy took on the role of a life-saver.

“Explain to us,” he said, “how you achieved this feat.”

“I never said I was originally fair-skinned,” he moaned. “I changed my complexion from dark to light using a bleaching cream. That was when I took that passport. When I stopped using the cream, I went back to dark. Easy.”

“In the space of what time?” Rakia wondered.

“Two weeks.”

“Remarkable!”

There remained the question of the difference in features. Rahmon explained to them with increasing note of irascibility that their knowledge of photography – which obviously needed sharpening up – was an unbelievable lesson in coarseness. If they could only take the time – the time – to observe that a good placing of the camera, maneuverability of lighting and apt positioning of the object to be captured could work a miracle in photography that no plastic surgery could work in real life, all would be well.

“Interesting!” was the only observation Prof. Rakia made.




Juke was waiting anxiously for news beside the porter’s lodge when Rahmon strolled out casually from the FBA building. Rahmon’s composure alone was enough to give Juke a reason to believe all had gone well. Juke, however, would like to be sure. He was on him at once.

“How did it go?” He asked.

“Fine,” casually.

“How fine then?”

“Oh, very fine.”

Juke could not hold his relief.

“Thank God!”

“Can I have my balance now?” Rahmon showed him his palm.

“Balance?” Juke was surprised. “But, you were unable to finish the paper.?”

“It will be finished.”

“When?”

“After the Exam Malpractice Panel sitting.”

Juke was completely thunderstruck.

“You are still going to appear before the School’s Exam Malpractice Panel?”

“No,” Rahmon told him calmly, “you are.”








The end!

Well, people, there you have it!

Naturally, your comments, criticisms, observations and recommendations will be appreciated.

Thanks for embarking on this short trip with me.

Prof Iyiegbuniwe qo catch you. Abi you think say no be him you use as Willy?

very interesting story. i am setting up a literary online magaze, i could publish dis on it if you dont mind. send the story to africanliterarytimes@gmail.com. thanks

Wow! Now all jukebox has to do is convince d malpractise panel that he has started using the bleaching cream again.

[color=#550000][/color]
Dude you're a pro, the humour in the story is terrific in gargantuan standards. I loved it!

phabulux: Prof Iyiegbuniwe qo catch you. Abi you think say no be him you use as Willy?

I have a feeling that you're not only an Akokite but also FINSA bred.

ijezie4: very interesting story. i am setting up a literary online magaze, i could publish dis on it if you dont mind. send the story to africanliterarytimes@gmail.com. thanks

You're free, sir.

I'll send you an email shortly.

alizenbohr: Wow! Now all jukebox has to do is convince d malpractise panel that he has started using the bleaching cream again.

But, bros, what about the handsome side?

I loved reading your feedback, sir.

The SoothSayer: [color=#550000][/color]
Dude you're a pro, the humour in the story is terrific in gargantuan standards. I loved it!

You did not only make my day, you made my whole YEAR.

Thanks, bruv.

dis is really nice...i lov it,nyc 1

Reading this was like reading something from Tom Sharpe....really well written! From start to finish, this story flowed naturally and I must say I did pick up a thing or two from you. Hope that's not an end to your writing.


(pretty awesome end to the story too!)

Madam speaker: dis is really nice...i lov it,nyc 1

Thanks, ma'am.

senbonzakura_kageyoshi: Reading this was like reading something from Tom Sharpe....really well written! From start to finish, this story flowed naturally and I must say I did pick up a thing or two from you. Hope that's not an end to your writing.


(pretty awesome end to the story too!)

I wrote this two years ago. After it, I wrote four full novels and seven short fictions.

I hope it doesn't stop.

Thanks, sir. You won't believe how much I appreciate your comment.

This is a good piece op

But you've not been a regular here considering when u started