This Hyena Is Going to Heaven

Mundu had already sent word for the runway on the Devil’s Mountain to be cleared. The Aeromass had to land, and the area had no trees tall enough to hide the landing of the largest flying bird in the world. The sight could scare the daylights out of humans, and defaulting to prayer was the Kenyan’s second nature. He was not taking chances of the Kamba who lived in the area calling upon heaven. Kamuti, the Kamba spirit of witchcraft, received the message and got to work. Milika, the female spirit from Samburu disguised as a flying cow, was there for reinforcement and offered to help for the fun of it. Kamuti reluctantly agreed knowing how she enjoyed frightening humans. Nevertheless, he wanted her to owe him a favor. Nothing in their world was done out of the goodness of the heart. They were not burdened with goodness or hearts at all, for that matter. Before the sun could have breakfast and start her journey west, stones pelted the iron sheet roofs of all human settlements within eye’s range of the Devil’s Mountain. Even the grass-thatched roofs were not spared. Sounds of footsteps bigger than an elephant’s rocked the compounds, but nothing was visible through the spying cracks. Not a creature left their habitat. The early birds already out scampered for cover wherever it could be found. The best math student, a ten-year-old, had just been appointed prefect in his class and timekeeper for his primary school. It was an important day, and he had left very early to ring the school bell. Anyone who came after the bell would be late and punished. He was almost in school when the biggest mountain of a cow leapt into the air from nowhere in particular and flew above his head. Her smoking nostrils were two endless caves through which he could see a boiling red and white brain. Her eyes were two long and thin yellow slits that pierced like a sword. But the scariest organ was the massive udder from which streams of milk rained down. The prefect came from a superstitious background and knew when he was face-to-face with evil. His curly African hair stood straight as his eyes bulged out of their sockets. His heartbeat was louder than the drums of wathi wa mukamba, the sensational Kamba dance that required the dancer to have no bones. There was no tree or shrub nearby to hide in, and suddenly his eye caught the biggest steaming pile of cow dung he had ever seen. “Osa vinya, Mukamba!” the prefect shouted the Kamba slogan of the brave. “Take courage, you are Kamba!” He dove in for dear life. Realizing only his face could be hidden, the prefect put his hands on his head. All that mattered was that his eyes did not lock with those of the thing. If you locked eyes with the devil, they remained locked unless God came personally with his master key! When the prefect was certain the evil apparition had passed, he sat down carefully, ever watchful with the one eye that did not have dung. In a slow trance, the prefect wiped the dung off his face with his hands and cleaning them on his school shorts. A cold wind slapped his face and he shrieked, realizing his new uniform and school bag were soaked with snow-white sticky milk. So was every exposed inch of his body to his bare feet. He had to do something quickly before any evil took root. The apparition could be returning. The prefect wet his pants some more and not with milk. Then with sudden resolve he took to the famous Kenyan heels and sprinted fast enough for the Olympics. There were modern brick houses on his way, but he did not stop there. He was not sure the high and mighty could understand matters of spirits and ghosts. Instead he came to a full stop outside an L-shaped house roofed with tin and iron sheets. The sides were made of mud bricks and smoothed with cow dung. A whitewash of soda ash gave it a brilliant white finish. A round whitewashed grass-thatched hut stood next to it. The prefect banged on the wooden door of the bigger house hard enough to shake the foundation. A brick popped out of the side and fell to the ground, leaving a gaping hole. A man’s hand quickly stuck the convex bottom of a small earthen cooking pot on the hole. A bed under which the children and their puppy were hiding clicked hard as their mother attempted to fit in. “Help me, help me, someone!” The lonely frightened voice of the prefect was heard throughout the entire village. “Help me, someone, anyone!” The boy cried harder. “I’ve been rained on by the devil!” A few mongrel dogs made muffled whimpering sounds from their emergency shelters of overturned cans and buckets forgotten outside the previous night. From the little hut, the old woman who knew about such things crawled to her tiny window, opened it a crack, and threw out a half used packet of salt. Just in case the crying voice was human, the poor child could ward off the evil spirits before they set. Quickly, the prefect poured salt all over his body. He put some more in his mouth and made a sign of the cross. The newly promoted prefect and bell ringer was not going to school that day. If the bell did not ring, no one was going to be late for school or face the cane that day. With the entire audience otherwise preoccupied, the runway on the Devil’s Mountain was clear. Aero circled in reverse and prepared to land. Neither the size of the bird nor the reverse maneuver was a spectacle fit for human sanity.