As the sunset and its rays made their way through the window and illuminated the bed where I had been lying down, all I wanted to do was to just disappear for a moment and forget all the stress I was in.
Get over a headache that prevented me from joining my colleagues in the evening camp parade.
It was our 20th day in the National Youth Service(NYSC) Camp when we were undergoing a 21-day training before being deployed to our various primary places of assignment for one year.
Though I was having these adventurous and fun times of my life at the camp, the stress of our daily activities, the matching parades, the long hours of skills acquisition lectures, and all other vigorous activities were already telling on me. So taking an hour of bed rest where I let great music do its magic of calming my nerves becomes a necessity.
My earpiece was plunged into my ears while I enjoyed the sweet melody of some of my favorite songs. Though I was present inside the room, my mind was long gone to somewhere wonderful, free of any physical stress.
About an hour later, I felt a tap on my leg which made me turn from the other side of the bed to see who it was. “Oh Funmi, you are the one, welcome back, how was the parade ground?”
Hey Babe, "you don't know what was announced on the parade ground this evening" With so much excitement on her face, it made me very curious to hear what she had to say.
Really, "And what was that"?
"Try and guess," she continues,
"Please, just save me the guessing game, and spill it out."
She sat beside me on the bed, with her smiling face that made her dimples so obvious and prettier than ever.
"The camp commander had announced an upward review of our monthly allowance from 19.8k Naira to 35k Naira by the federal government."
Awe, I jumped out of bed and my headache seemed to vanish immediately.
"Oh my God, so the rumor is true, I can't believe this will be happening in our time"
"Yes, babe it is true, and congratulations to all of us"
We spent the next hour talking about the positive impact of the increments of our allowance. How we are going to be spending the money, save part of it, and shop for some new clothes from the first payment.
But later that night I found out that Funmi had been pulling my legs.
"How could you toy with my emotions like this Funmi, do you want me to stop trusting you?"
"I'm sorry babe, I do not mean to hurt you, I was just trying to make you cheer up, that headache had been holding you down, and I missed my ever-cheerful friend."
"You wanted to cheer me up and all you could come up with is by telling me something that is not true?" " "But wait, you did cheer me up, but please don't do this again."
"I'm truly sorry." She pleaded, "Please forgive me, I never knew you would believe me in the first place, but you did and I just went along with it, I shouldn't have done that, You know I will never want to hurt your feelings "
I forgave Funmi that night because I knew she would never try to hurt me, it was just a prank taken a bit far.
The following day, in the afternoon, after our parade activities were over, Funmi and I chilled in a cafe at Mammi, our camp market and we had a deep conversation over a cup of tea and pie, we promised ourselves to always stay truthful and honest to each other to continue to strengthen our friendship all the time and never to lie to each other again. Funmi once again apologized for lying to me the previous night.
It's okay babe, we have come such a long way, I won't let one little prank come in between us, so I forgive you wholeheartedly. We both enjoyed the tea and pie and left the cafe very happy.
Funmi was not just a friend I met in the National Youth Service camp, she has been my long-term friend right from our year one in college. We had walked into each other during our course registration in the administrative blocks, and she requested my help locating our head of department office, which I did. I was struck by her cheerful and friendly nature, so we kind of hit it off right from that time. As we grew to know each other more we both had become inseparable.
Though I studied statistics and she was in the computer science department, we always looked forward to spending time together in our free time and enjoyed the time we had lectures in some courses the two of us had in common.
We saw ourselves as extremely lucky when we were posted to serve our Nation after graduation not just in the same state but also managed to end up as a roommate at the camp house.
The incident of the prank pulled on me by Funmi taught both of us how trust is very important in maintaining a long-lasting friendship. Lies might seem to be a way out sometimes but the end could easily be disastrous. So we promised to always be honest and transparent with one another ever since.
This is my entry into this week's #creativenonfiction prompt in The Inkwell community
Thank you so much for your time. Bye🥰🙏 
