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A friend of mine told me that everyone in the world had an essence.
One that was uniquely incorporated into them. It could be formed from a number of things, the body spray they wore or the places they've been or just simply their body chemistry.
All these combined to give them a unique scent, owned by them and only them.
I didn't believe it, people smelt the way they did because of what they wore.
If two people happened to use the same brand of perfume, they would smell the same way.
She argued that she could tell who was who by them just simply passing her by without even looking as long as she had been close long enough to get their essence incorporated into her senses.
Still I didn't believe her,not until my last year in secondary school.
The first time I saw Emem was when we both came to write an entrance exam into the same secondary school, but it was only a brief glance and the only reason I paid any attention to her was because she was there with two of her sisters and the invigilator made it known.
We both got admitted. My first precise memory of her was me walking into class.
She was sitting there already kitted up in her school uniform.
I thought, didn't we take the entrance exam the same day?
How come she had a uniform already and I didn't?
Not surprisingly, we were the only new students in SS1 Science and I felt even more left out because I was the only one putting on home clothes. She was lucky, she could easily blend in with the rest of them.
As the only new students, we were placed together.
I didn't say a single word to her. I wasn't much of a talker back then. Coincidentally I found out her name was Emem. We were namesakes, you see, my middle name is Emem.
Months went by and I slowly started to feel like a part of my classmates.
I liked to surround myself with smart people, people that understood my language but there was a reason I wanted to be around Emem. Her scent.
People say babies have a particular kind of scent, a homely smell that makes you want to just sniff them or carry them all the time.
Emem had a particular scent. I used to tease her and tell her she needed to tell me how to make myself smell like her so I could be sniffing myself all day long.
She would laugh and say it was her sister's perfume she used.
We didn't exactly like the same things and we didn't flow the same way. For example, I picked up and understood a math problem in a few minutes and it took her a little longer than that.
Yet we stuck because it was us from day one.
In SS3, we planned out our second term, we were going to move into the hostel together. I was never so lucky to have a sister, so she become one even though she already had two.
Although I never really talked to them because everyone liked claiming seniority back then.
On a particular Monday, I arrived late to school, my bus was always late. Emem's head lay on the table.
I walked up to her and asked her what was wrong, she waved her hand and said she was just feeling feverish and she would be fine in no time.
That day she didn't smell like the girl I wanted to to sniff all day but I guess I could understand. She said she had been throwing up a lot.
We were in the middle of a class when she rushed out to throw up. Her parents had to be called to take her to the hospital.
The next day I arrived late yet again. All the students were already gathered for assembly so I joined the line.
Something was wrong, I looked at my classmates.
Most of the girl's eyes were red. What happened?
Then my Principal announced it, "We lost one of us yesterday".
I just knew.
I didn't even know when the tears started.
That was my first experience losing someone so close to me.
Emem never made it to the hospital. We never got to move into the hostel together.
We didn't have a single class that day. Everyone simply sat in their seats quietly.
Weeks went by. Most of us stopped having breakdowns during classes.
I passed her sister on my way to submit my assignment a few months later and her scent hit me. At that moment I understood.
They might have shared the same body spray but Emem was different. She simply smelt like herself and I knew it was gone forever. Her essence was gone.
I try not to think about it. No matter how long it has been, it still hurts.
I hope just like I did six years ago that she is in a better place where nothing hurts anymore.
