THE MYSTERIOUS BEAST

By Pacharo Felix Munthali
"This is impossible, why but why?" It was not an occasion for merrymaking. The morning set up was nebulous. The atmosphere wore gloomy face. Dark clouds hovering in the sky bore witness as in masses came hurrying with blustery weather. Everyone was buried in the garbage of perplexity. Even the comic Chilekwa's lips were all cemented together; failing even to utter the simplest standard one shaggy dog story. The milieu was ferocious. Everything around was restless.
Chief detective Inspector Nkwerero's face played host to the rays of the sun, which was beginning its voyage of climbing the horizon, followed by the expression of infuriation due to the piercing manner the rays tormented his slender but aged-face. He screwed his face in contours of fury and uncertainty. His compounded eyes were strangely almost popping out and seemed red with rage than any time in his profession. Thirty solid years!
"The fourth murder case two days after the previous one in the same precinct," blared Nkwerero, his archaic moustache as if they had been practicing the whole night seemingly dancing to the tune of his anger. "It's impossible! We cannot tolerate this nonsense and allow our image and integrity to be dyed with all backsliding comments. Derogatory comments for that matter!"
This was the fourth murder within two weeks. Regaining the birthright of breathing in all cases proved futile and distant reality to the victims. What made the situation to nest even more conundrum ever thought, was that those that had joined the bandwagon of being killed were all police officers. Two of them were well-trained and fully groomed cops.
As if that did not carry huge weight, there was something that made policemen tremble with fever. Fever of fear! A thing that completed the situation to be covered with air that is but a misty. Whenever the killer claimed a policeman a victim there was always a note left. It is this note that made Chief Detective Inspector to perspire profusely. "You are next!" was what the entire note said.
"You have to track down this sinister," it was the Inspector butting in, whose anger intermingled with confusion to brew an expression on his face not enough to be put into lexical depiction. He moved around the group of the police officers like a preacher giving a scary sermon to the congregation that no matter what they do, hell remains their only destiny.
Sub Inspector Matiki all along had been quiet. He was thinking; his forehead welling up with sweat instantly. He was a stern man. Being talkative to him was a signpost of weakness.
"The more you talk, the more mistakes you are prone to make," most of the time he would say. Since joining the police service, he has been more of a go-getter than a conversationalist. To him action utters volumes than words.
He knelt down. Putting on the gloves, he niggled at the inscription like a laboratory technician observing microbes under the microscope. He looked at it, but could not make a tail out of it.
A chain of over-lapping thoughts amassed his mind, but no solution could mushroom to seal lips of doubting Thomases so that the vox populi should at least be spared from constipating after stomaching whole lot of stories carried out in the country's watchful media. Only when the fog of uncertainty would be cleared, freedom in his bones or complacency appeared to be shifting far beyond horizons.
"Fourth murder!" words of Nkwerero kept on lingering in his mind; he wiped away sweat from his forehead as a way of portraying the intensity of the parable at hand. He was furious to be in such a complex, a scenario in which probability of hope kept on fainting with every tick of the clock. It was like a gamble. Chances of being promoted and demoted in both extremes were skyrocket towering.
On the day the first police officer met his fate, inspector Matiki had been patrolling the same area. The next two murder cases happened when he went to Israel for a four day Modern Investigation Seminar. Now he was on the very same spot where the fourth police officer has been found motionless. Dead!
The silence of isolation, though at millipedes' pace started to shadow his confidence. But he still managed to sum up courage and flash a beam of smile in satisfaction at his invincible record in as far as trucking down of mysterious killers was concerned.
"I deserve a noble prize," he talked to himself.
He paced around the victim. He noticed something. Every time someone's life was terminated, a number of teeth were removed as well. The gums looked to be hosting deep wells, full of solidified brown blood. He wondered why that was a trend. Again, he was at pain to realize that only the law enforcers were the only victims. A wave of heat ran through Matiki's veins.
The man, pot-bellied was glued to the ground. He visibly seemed as though he was making a salute to the state president as the fury of knife went into his stomach. The blood had soaked the police uniform; the victim wore, beyond recognition. There were few hours since the attacker had done the damage to the victim's life. The permanent damage!
The man, now lifeless rejuvenated Matiki's mind on how they had struggled together in life. Offering each other a hand, they had ploughed through all stumbling blocks that colored education in Timwengeland. Through hard work, they reached the senior level of secondary education and did extremely outstanding. They were selected to the same university, but huge burdens of responsibility beckoning on their shoulders they did not go further. They joined police service. Now his friend was gone. For numberless time he held back tears. His mind wrestled, but nothing cropped up.
The frame of the person, motionless, facing upwards on the ground, inflicted the mind of Matiki with deep cuts of wounds. A volcano of tears almost coursed down his cheeks. As he re-examined the note "You are next!" a clear idea on how to track down the killer sprouted. The killer had made a gravel mistake; a stupid mistake for that matter. It was a blunder that even an amateur couldn't give a damn. During the last operation, the killer had written the inscription on the card baring his hotel room number.
"He is at Mchinchi Hotel, but how will I know him?" He asked himself.
Constable Chisi, who had been in the police for over 10 years, approached Matiki trudging tiringly.
"Sir Sub Inspector mat… the Chief Detective…says you should interrogate that frail looking man over there," Constable Chisi showing all signs of tiredness and lack of sleep in stammer conveyed the message. "The man witnessed the events as they unfolded."
"Coming!"
The man matched the description. Weak, scraggy but talkative was the simplified way the man could be described. At times, the man looked more of a lunatic rather than a person who can provide information that can lead to the apprehension of the suspect.
That evening, Matiki was on his way to Mchinchi Hotel. Tall and thin is the how the killer was described. The killer had shot the witness and thought he had been shot and died indeed. The witness had pretended that he had died, hence leaving him. The witness at the time was on duty as a guard. Four civilian police officers will be at various points. Two inside the hotel especially in bar and the other two outside at the car pack near the car that matches the description.
As they sat inside the bar, a young man, matching the description emerged and was going out. He was in black suit and putting on sunglasses yet it was at night.
They followed him out.
"Hands up!" the police officer outside called.
Then it was the exchange of fire. Two police officers were badly injured. Matiki jumped out and aimed at the killer, he was gunned down. Silence took over. Inside the bar women screamed and men trembled.
When Matiki came near the killer, his facial expression changed. It was Kuzonga. Almost his brother. Matiki because he was an orphan, who had lost both his parents when he was two was raised up by Kuzonga's parents.
"Kuzonga what is this?" Matiki asked his half-brother tears running down his cheeks for the first time in his profession.
"It's not your fault Matiki, I have to blame myself," with laboured breath Kuzonga, the mysterious killer said.
Silence reigned. The two police officers that were inside kept a distance from where Matiki and Kuzonga were. Blood was oozing from where Kuzonga had been shot. The two brothers were looking at each other like cocks that had been fight the whole day.
Within a blink guns rattled. Matiki was down. He had killed himself. Kuzonga had no option but to get his half brother's gun and killed himself as well.

2009

By Pacharo Felix Munthali
As the parties and the referee warm up
Towards this ostentatious match
Hosted at the Match-Mecca
My psyche is soaked
In the web of flummox
Beyond stratosphere
Expectations echoing
Hope once more called hope
All to the same God begging favours
Another year is here
Another boogie to enjoy
For comedians and orators
Lunatics and the principled
To manipulate and obfuscate the gullibles
2009
The dancing year
The dust swirling
Tears once more
Another mixed bag

VOICES FROM REALM

By Pacharo Felix Munthali
Here we don't have knowledge of the existence of days nor nights. That after a tedious, energy-reneging job one has to sleep is a discourse non-existent here. It's an existence prodigy. All we have is glory, glory and more glory. That while I was down there I was impecunious old man, who could even hardly buy salt; to be here it is totally a different microcosm. A wonder I never imagined, a wonder ineffable to simply clarify for easy comprehension for a mind polluted with worldly lies.
When I was down there I was looked down upon, unlike here where we all are on the same scale the way Jesus treated the sinners and the otherwise. Down there, I will never forget…
I was complicatedly condemned, dissolving though not deserving, into utmost cruel ballistic trap that instantly exhibited a new home page in my life. Or should I say in my lives?
Those folks! Those folks gave me bitter lessons; lessons that wrecked and plummeted my life into a wanderer. How I hated to be in a country where your immediate contributions were not acknowledged. They wait for you to start getting ill. As if they have hit the bull's eye like a horde hunters that has grounded a marauding lion, they flock to your preaching messages of good will, deep down you can read them as if they are saying die fast, your death should be dissolved into a political rally.
You see, St. Peter, down there I had played a role in the struggle against the colonial whites. Together, a sign of solidarity and African Socialism in our African spirits, we marched miles, not feeling hungry neither fatigue. We were chased now and again from our own lands in our own country, our lands snatched away, but we stood on our ground. Not even an itch did we leave our country.
"We fear only the one who can destroy the soul not the body," our songs whittled away fears of unknown astray arrow that could hit one of us anytime. That we knew. That we saw.
In the azure skies guns rattling had rumbled, souls crumbled and numerous of unfortunate individuals in all extremes of spasm of pain grumbled. Oh, not unfortunate, the patriots one by one ceased breathing, reserving the breathing air for the coming generations. But there was no turning back. We marched forward, not facing east nor west. We soldiered on like wounded lions.
"Let your bullets wipe out our generation, but let the posterity tap water of hope and happiness from our deep wounded hearts filled with blood," we would chant, singing twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
Without bothering myself to go through tumble-and-rolling procedure of going to the immigration department, I saw the infamous Gweru without being required to produce a passport. What a wicked place! In those dark rooms, days passed. After some times we got released in the 60s. For some of us, we were released abit late, young man!
By the time some of us were released, euphoria outlandishly splendid had seeped through the country infiltrating all and sundries' hearts. We were forgotten. Some of our friends then swimming in the media grandiose, had forgotten us as well. That we had worked with them around the clock, that was forgotten. We were looked at as mere supercilious creatures.
All the constructive criticisms we leveled against them were brusquely brushed aside and thrown to the birds in the bush. I hope, St. Peter with the holy ones here knows that. Then it reached the point that we had to run away from our own country. This happened after going through taxing experience that used to come along with detention without trial, St. Peter, at least here its very professional. Beaten in prison in all sorts of forms we endured. Upon being released, I had no option but let myself secretly snake out the country.
You go East, West, North or even South, but in all these directions home always remain the best. You know what, St. Peter, even though in the country I lived I enjoyed a comfortable life, it was disheartening upon realizing many of my people were under the punitive chain of oppression. I came back…
I came at a time when the craze called democracy had swiftly swept through the country. The politics that we used to practice had as well changed. I miserably failed to win a parliamentary seat even in my hometown. From unsung hero to the sung villain, imagine – true hero to zero scenario. If you can't beat them join them, but I chose my own way – I retired. That is when I found myself at Nthalire with my life in the last attempt to curb and silence the monster called poverty that had raid roots in my life at the time. My constructive criticisms were for the second time overlooked.
With many problems chocking many hidden potentials that people had, though I was old, the problem of cancer was on me. Unfortunately nobody came in. When calls were being made that me, Chibwatiko, a man who has seen sixty decades plus is battling with the problem of cancer nobody came. But when they heard that it was now worse and admitted at Kings hospital like thirsty athletes scrambling for bottles of water they came. It was too late, St. Peter…
Those folks…
On my funeral some individuals stood tall, claiming that until the time of my untimely death I was their friend, my heart missed a beat. Some of these are the ones that did not offer the help when my problem was just starting, now on my funeral they claimed to be my comrades. Oh God!
By the way St. Peter look down there. You see what I have been telling you. Look at house those elders in the country are behaving. Scrambling for a funeral. Abbreviating a funeral place as if a place where one can do his political rally. It is sad, how do you look at it St. Peter. Please speak, at least now.
"How I wish I had spoken"
"You are already speaking by saying that, St. Peter"
The trumpet is blown. There is no longer the view of the world. St. peter is gone. I have no choice. But follow as well.