Fear no man..fear no man..fear no evil..
- ramona kirabo
- Jun 2, 2024
- 3 min read
This is how my high school handled strange occurances: one time there was a rumour circulating that three men had been spotted around the dorm area(we didn’t have a fence around the school because the admin trusted that given how hard the school was to get into, no one was trying to escape. They also liked to think the school as one with the community, so neighbours were always strolling through, attending service at our chapel. The admin just trusted that they were not dangerous). Anyway, the announcement we received to address this rumour through our class prefects one night before prep was this: ‘Apparently there are some random men on compound? This is what you’re going to do, teenage girls: don’t walk to dorm by yourselves. Go with at least one other person.’ (To match their energy, someone ready to head to dorm after prep would announce, ‘Is anyone going to Kennedy? #ThreeStrangeMen’)
And when there were rumours of paranormal activity, and a tiny wave of panic hit the school, the local hero, our head teacher announced at assembly: ‘The next person to see anything, or catch the Holy Ghost, is getting expelled. Have a lovely week.’
While I figure out where I’m going with this, let me tell you this story:
When I first became a prefect in S.5, my roommates and I struggled to adjust to having all that power (we had to wake up earlier than we were accustomed to, so we had to be at the chapel for our meeting by 4.30am). We were sharing one alarm clock between a room of twelve. The first week of our term, we got fined nonstop, and continuously reprimanded in front of our colleagues. (An embarrassing NB: we were in the dorm closest to the chapel)
At the end of that week, we decided we’d had enough. We set the alarm, and made sure that a person that didn’t kick it off their bed when it rung was in charge of it; we were awake, and trudging sleepily to the chapel before 4.30 that Friday. We were early: the prefects in charge of the chapel were yet to open it, so a group of maybe three, from a different dormitory, waited by the door. The light fixtures in the school were designed to cater to its overachieving students, so whatever time we needed to study to, we never really worried about walking to dorm in the darkness. All the pavements in the school were adequately lit, aside from the ones leading to the courts, the pool area, and sports field. (We weren’t that overachieving)
Anyway, that morning as the four of us got closer to the chapel, someone emerged from the unlit area. It was not yet 4.30, so we didn’t expect anyone but prefects to be awake. She had a scarf over her head, so as she walked past us, I turned to see who it was. It’s not just me that found her presence peculiar because as I turned, so did the other people I was walking with. And just as we turned, the power in the school went out. We were suddenly very awake, and sprinting toward the chapel doors.
The moments that followed remain a blur. What I remember is that the people we found at the chapel doors were just as shaken, that we felt justified in our reactions. We immediately returned to our respective beds, and no threat of a fine could pick me from how deep into mine I dove.
Anyway..have a lovely week?
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