Time of the Locust by Morowa Yejidé

Author:Morowa Yejidé
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Atria Books

Heart and Mind

Beginning with the coldness of his uncle’s basement when he was seven years old, Horus had the eerie sense that the heart could make a decision long before the mind had realized it. This feeling, which dwelled somewhere in the ether of his subconscious, grew stronger as he grew older. He had the sense that the heart, with its own barometer of scope and impact, could experience something and make a choice that the mind would be helpless in resisting. The mind, in its arrogance of understanding and control of matters it has neither understanding of nor control over, could preach long and hard to the heart about what was and what wasn’t—never once realizing (until it was too late) that the heart has already decided.

Secreted in Horus’s subconscious was the truth that no two hearts process anything in the same way. The tree limb from which two birds take their first flight does not wonder what is to become of them. It does not ask the questions: Where will one of them go? Which path will the other one take? No. It bears witness only to their departure and the wind left in their wake. And even if Horus and his brother had been through what they went through as twins, there was always the reality that each of their hearts would have had its own voice, its own calling. As it was, he and Manden, although they were from the same nest, felt what was to be felt differently. Two hearts made different decisions.

For Horus, this dynamic seemed at first to be sparked by happenstance. Later, it seemed to him that it had all been mystic, almost destiny. He was at work, making his usual security guard rounds inside the Martin Luther King Library on Ninth Street. With his usual precision, he was checking that the employee-access areas were locked and securing the conference rooms. He headed to the library archives, which were always immaculate and empty. On a great wooden table were huge leather-bound books that had been left out, big black serious timeless books that held the recorded history of the world.

Horus went over to the table and began thumbing through them. One of them held the entire New York Times newspaper printings starting with the year 1940. His eyes roved the pages, looking for nothing in particular. There were stories about the war. There were stories about the presidential election of Franklin D. Roo­sevelt. There was an article about the wave of black tenants in the New York rent districts that the Jews had abandoned. Then he came across an article about the first Negro Day Parade on August 16, 1940. There was a list of some of the participants. And there it was: “Nola M. Pierce.”

At first, Horus wondered what the M stood for without realizing why. He stared and stared at the name, as if circling the rim of something. “There could be a million women with the same middle initial,” his mind said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.