Bryan Mealer - The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

I tried to be courageous like my friend the donkey whenever I walked through the forest. But witches and wizards never reveal their identity, so you never know where their traps lie waiting. In these places where they practice, their potent magic takes on many shapes. Men with bald heads, twenty feet tall, are said to appear on the roads outside of Ntchisi, a few at first, then dozens all around. Ghost trucks drive the same roads at night, coming on fast with their bright lights flashing and engines revving loud. But as the lights pass by, no truck is attached. No tire marks are left on the road, and if you’re driving a car, your engine will die until morning.

Magic hyenas wander the villages at night, snatching several goats at once in their razor jaws and delivering them to the doorsteps of wizards. Magic lions are sent to kill delinquent debtors, and snakes the size of tractors can lie in wait for you in your fields.

But the dangers for children are even greater. As I mentioned, these wizards command great armies of children to do their witchcraft, and each night they prowl the villages for fresh recruits. They tempt them with delicious meats, saying it’s the only way to heaven. Once the children devour the tasty morsels, it’s revealed as human flesh. By then it’s too late, for once the wizard’s evil is inside your body, it controls you forever.

In addition to casting spells for curses and revenge, the witches often battle one another. This leads to great confusion in the kingdom of the devil, and this strife leaves many dead and injured, which is why children make the perfect soldiers.

The children pile aboard witch planes that prowl the skies at night, capable of traveling to Zambia and London in a single minute. Witch planes can be anything: a wooden basin, a clay pot, a simple hat. Flying about on magic duty, the children are sent to homes of rival wizards to test their powers. If the child is killed in the process, the wizard can determine the weapon of his enemy and develop something stronger. Other nights, the children visit camps of other witches for competition. Here, mystical soccer matches are played on mysterious fields in places I’ve never heard of, where the cursed children use human heads as balls and compete for great cups of flesh.

AFTER ESCAPING THE BUBBLEGUM vendor, I became terribly afraid of being captured, and I tried to think of ways to protect myself. I knew witches and wizards were allergic to money because the presence of cash is like a rival evil. Any contact with money will snap their spell and revert them back to human form—usually naked. For this reason, people often plaster their walls and bed mats with kwacha notes to protect themselves during the night. If they’re suddenly awoken by a naked man trying to escape, their suspicions are correct.

Another way of protecting yourself is to pray your soul clean each night at the foot of your bed, and I’d done that, too. Homes of the prayerful are concealed from witch planes that fly overhead. It’s like passing through a cloud.

“Papa, please, some kwacha notes for my walls,” I begged my father one afternoon. “I can’t sleep at night.”

My father knew a lot about witchcraft, but he had no place for magic in his own life. To me, this made him seem even stronger. My parents had raised us to be churchgoing Presbyterians who believed God was the best protection. Once you opened your heart to magic, we were taught, you never knew what else you might let inside. We respected the power of juju, even feared it, but my family always trusted our faith would prevail.

My father was mending a fence around the garden and stopped what he was doing. “Let me tell you a story,” he said. “In 1979 when I was trading, I was riding in the back of a pickup going to Lilongwe to sell dried fish in the market. Several others were with me. The truck suddenly lost control, pitching us all into the air. When we landed, we saw it rolling straight for us. I said at that moment, ‘I’m dying now. This is my time.’ But just before the truck rolled over my body and crushed me like an ant, it skidded to a stop. I could reach out and touch it. Several people were dead in the grass, but I didn’t have a scratch.”

He turned to face me, making his point.

“After that happened, how can I believe in wizards and charms? A magic man would have tried these things and died. I was saved by the power of God. Respect the wizards, my son, but always remember, with God on your side, they have no power.”

I trusted my father, but wondered how his explanation accounted for Rambo and Chuck Norris, who came to the trading center that summer and created a lot of controversy. These men were appearing in films shown in the local theater, which was really just a thatch hut with wooden benches, a small television, and a VCR. For this reason, everyone called it the video show. At night, wonderful and mysterious things began happening in this place, but since I was forbidden to be out after dark, I missed them all. Instead, I relied on the stories I heard from my mates who lived close by and whose parents weren’t so strict. These boys, such as Peter Kamanga, would find me the next day when I arrived.

“Last night I watched the best of all movies,” Peter said. “Rambo jumped from the top of the mountain and was still firing his gun when he landed. Everyone in front of him died and the entire mountain exploded.” He clutched a phantom machine gun and sent a burst of deadly rounds into the maize mill.

“Oh,” I said, “when will they ever show these films during the day? I never see anything.”

The exploits of Rambo and Delta Force became confusing to some, who’d never imagined men escaping entire armies, while still managing to kill so many people. The night Terminator came to the video show was simply shocking. When Peter found me the next morning, he was still in a state.

“William, last night I watched a movie that I still don’t understand,” he said. “This man was shot left, right, and center, yet he still managed to live. His enemies blew off his arms and legs, even his head, yet his eyes were still alive. I’m telling you, this man must be the greatest wizard who ever lived.”

It sounded fantastic. “Do you think these azungu from America have such magic?” I asked. “I don’t believe it.”

“This is what I saw. I’m telling you it’s true.”

Although it would be several years before I finally saw one of these films in the video show, they started to influence many of the games we played back home. One of them was played with toy guns we made from a mpoloni bush.

It was called USA versus Vietnam.

To make these guns, we removed the core from the mpoloni ’s stem, much like disassembling a ballpoint pen, and used it as both a ramrod and trigger. After removing the core, we chewed up bits of maize pith and shoved them down the barrel, followed by paper spitballs to create a seal. When the ramrod was forced down behind, it created enough pressure to spray an opponent with a shower of slimy gunk.

I was captain of one team, while my cousin Geoffrey was captain of the other. Along with some other cousins and neighbors, we split into teams of five, then hunted one another in the maize rows and across the dirt courtyard that separated our house from Geoffrey’s.

“You go left, I’ll go right!” I instructed my comrades one such afternoon, then scrambled on knees and elbows through the red dirt. We were never clean.

I spotted a bit of Geoffrey’s trouser from around the corner of the house, so I snuck around the opposite way without spooking the chickens. Once I was clear, I bolted around the corner. It was an easy ambush.

“ Tonga! ”

I jammed the ramrod down the barrel and released a shower of white saliva and mush, spraying my cousin square in the face.