A week after Tokunbo's arrival in London Bola arrived. It was a spectacular summer afternoon, with the sun shining brightly down on the Thames, and surrounding countryside. Tokunbo waited in the arrivals section. In his hands he held a bunch of roses. White roses..He looked nervously around the terminal, and paced up and down,now and then turning around to survey the emerging passengers from immigration. The last thing that he wanted was to miss her in the crowd of people outside the arrivals door. There were men, women and children, and taxi drivers all jostling around impatiently and contributing to a sense of controlled chaos. He saw her walk out, and he wondered to himself how he had thought that he could ever have missed her, even in a crowd. There was, in his mind, no crowd too big to seperate them from each other. In the passion of a new found love he suffered from illusions about the power of this love. She, was in a pink suit, on her head she wore a french beret in white, which made her appear younger than her age. Behind her she pulled a suitcase. As she spotted her lover making his way towards her her face broke into the familiar charming smile which had besotted him. He could not help but smile back in return, and he advanced rapidly towards her. " Darling...Welcome to London", and he kissed her ever so lightly on her lips and handed her the flowers. " Oh, you should'nt have.." she said taking the flowers, and impulsively lifting them up to smell scent of the roses " " Thank you...Mmmm... there is nothing like the smell of fresh roses" She gave him her suitcase and as they walked away he enquired about the trip, and the graduation that he had missed. " It has all gone well," she remarked, and the added, " Thank God! It is noce to be here at any rate. And you, have you been able to get any rest? You looked so stressed out before you left." This seemed to induce displeasure in him. " Everyone keeps saying that , and I am tired of hearing it. "Stressed out!", and "Stressed out!". Stressed out? Is there any man in his right mind living in Nigeria now who is not? No, I think sometimes that insanity is a blessed refuge created by God for the just and favored ones, from the turmoils of this world. Mind you, that is the happy mad man, whi in his detachment from reality is a soaring eagle in the heavens of bliss. No, onthe other hand, there is on the opposite side of the spectrum, a disorder of thinking in which the darkness is overwhelming and all encompassing, and for them, only death is a refuge from their tortured existence." She smiled to herself, evidently he was in better spirits, she could tell this by the return of his philosophising and the depth of his introspection. " Yes, you are quite right", and she smiled her sweet smile at him," if it's not the water being shut off, then it's the light.." " But, you digress!" he angrily interjected," Tell me everyting about the graduation, you must fill me in from the start to the finish." He could not bear the idea of her having a part of her life, although only a week, in which he did not feature prominently, more so in regards to mmissing a momentous occasion as a graduation. As they drove in the taxi she from Heathrow to their Hotel, she told him of the ceremonies and the speeches and the parties. It had seemed like it was just yesterday, she said, that they had entered the university, and now it had all abruptly come to an end, the fairy-tale existence of care-free college days were over. He had the asked her in as disinterested a manner as possible about his ex girlfriend Yetunde. At the mention of her rivals name her back had straightened itself , and a stiff formailty took over from the lightness," You ask of Yetunde?" She asked, half pretending to have not understood the question," She was there and left for Lagos, I think, the day after her graduation." then after a moment of thought she added" And, my understanding is that you never did tell her what we had agreed upon..." He nodded in agreement. She looked more displeased still, and in an effort to assuage her anger, he added, " How could I do that to her during the week of her final exams? That would have been a dastardly deed indeed . Have you heard the saying,' For everything has it's time and it's place'." For Bola, the break-up with Yetunde could not come too soon.