The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The machine was ready. After so many months of preparation, the work was finally complete: The motor and blades were bolted and secured, the chain was taut and heavy with grease, and the tower stood steady on its legs. The muscles in my back and arms had grown as hard as green fruit from all the pulling and lifting. And although I’d barely slept the night before, I’d never felt so awake. My invention was complete. It appeared exactly as I’d seen it in my dreams.
News of my work had spread far and wide, and now people began to arrive. The traders in the market had watched it rise from a distance and they’d closed up their shops, while the truck drivers left their vehicles on the road. They’d crossed the valley toward my home, and now they gathered under the machine, looking up in wonder. I recognized their faces. These same men had teased me from the beginning, and still they whispered, even laughed.
Let them, I thought. It was time.
I pulled myself onto the tower’s first rung and began to climb. The soft wood groaned under my weight as I reached the top, where I stood level with my creation. Its steel bones were welded and bent, and its plastic arms were blackened from fire.
I admired its other pieces: the bottle-cap washers, rusted tractor parts, and the old bicycle frame. Each one told its own story of discovery. Each piece had been lost and then found in a time of fear and hunger and pain. Together now, we were all being reborn.
In one hand I clutched a small reed that held a tiny lightbulb. I now connected it to a pair of wires that dangled from the machine, then prepared for the final step. Down below, the crowd cackled like hens.
“Quiet, everyone,” someone said. “Let’s see how crazy this boy really is.”
Just then a strong gust of wind whistled through the rungs and pushed me into the tower. Reaching over, I unlocked the machine’s spinning wheel and watched it begin to turn. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, until the whole tower rocked back and forth. My knees turned to jelly, but I held on.
I pleaded in silence: Don’t let me down.
Then I gripped the reed and wires and waited for the miracle of electricity. Finally, it came, a tiny flicker in my palm, and then a magnificent glow. The crowd gasped, and the children pushed for a better look.
“It’s true!” someone said.
“Yes,” said another. “The boy has done it. He has made electric wind!”