Light Ahead for the NegroJohnson, Edward A. (Edward Austin)
Science
Light Ahead for the Negro
Johnson, Edward A. (Edward Austin)
African Americans; United States -- Race relations
She stated that inquiry had already been made and that “old records”
showed that a person by the name of Twitchell had been appointed in
1906, according to the reading of the certificate, and that while _en
route_ to his prospective field of labor in an air-ship he was supposed
to have come to an untimely death, as nothing had been seen or heard of
him since. Further than that the official records did not go.
“Now, we should be very glad to have you tell us how you came by that
certificate,” she suggested.
I was aghast. I was afraid to talk to her or to look about me. And the
more fully I came to myself the more I felt that I did not dare to ask
a question. The shock of one answer might kill me.
I summoned all my strength, and spoke hurriedly, more to prevent her
speaking again than to say anything.
“Perhaps I can tell you something later on,” I said hoarsely. “I find
my memory quite cloudy, in fact, I seem to be dreaming.”
She saw my misery and suggested that I go into “the room used to cure
nervousness” and that I remain as long as possible. I passed stupidly
through the door she held open for me and had hardly sat down before
I felt soothed. The only color visible was violet,--walls, ceiling,
furniture, carpet, all violet of different shades. An artificial light
of the same color filled the room. And the air!--What was there in it?
A desk was at the other end of the large apartment. As my eyes roved
about the strange looking place I saw on it an ordinary calendar pad,
the only thing in the room that closely resembled objects I had seen
before. The moment that I realized what it was I felt as though I was
about to have a nervous chill. I dared not look at it, even from that
distance. But the delicious air, the strength-giving light revived me
in spite of myself. For full five minutes I sat there, staring, before
starting over to look at it; for though I knew not who I was, and
though I had passed through only two rooms of the house, and had met
only one person, I had divined the truth a thousand times.
As I slowly neared it I saw the day of the month, the twenty-fourth.
Nearer and nearer I came, finally closing my eyes as the date of the
year in the corner became _almost_ legible--just as I had done in the
car of the air-ship, that awful moment. I moved a little nearer. I
could read it now! I opened my eyes and glanced, then wildly tore the
pads apart, to see if they were all alike--and fell to the floor once
more.
It was the year _two thousand and six_, just one hundred years from the
date of my appointment to the position of a teacher in the South!
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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