Black Telepathy

Speciation. How exactly does that occur? When does it occur? What would it mean for the world if it happened in humans? Once upon a time, the answers to that line of questioning would have meant very little to Clarence Brownstone. He's never been the scientific type, to be exact. A tall, slim African American fellow who seems quite bland when one first meets him, that's Clarence in a nutshell. Well, that was before...

In the latter days of the twenty-first century, a series of events began to plague mankind. First, it happened to the environment. Animal and plant species began to die out. The Amazon Rain Forest began to recede, and the Sahara got flooded due to the coming of the Super Storms. The Arctic all but vanished, and once-dry areas of the world began to flood. Next came the skyrocketing rates of cancer, mental illness and various other human ailments.

By the year 2077, environmental disasters had claimed nearly a billion lives. Europe was a shell of its former self. South America and Australia had similarly been decimated. Africa and the Middle East were hanging on for now. China and Japan had been forced to join forces in the name of survival as Vietnam, India and Pakistan all but succumbed to cataclysms. North America remained largely untouched, but no corner of the human world can escape the changes wrought by the shifting climate...

"Mother nature is cancelling humans," said Linda Javier-Brownstone, the woman whom Clarence was brought forth and raised by. Tall and elegant, with dark brown skin and silver hair, Linda Brownstone is a proud daughter of Biloxi, Mississippi. Educated at Jackson State University, Linda Brownstone went on to teach at Biloxi Latin Academy, an elite prep school. She's known her only son Clarence was different from day one.

"Don't say this, mama, we are not getting cancelled," said Clarence, and the young man exchanged a smile with his mother. Sometimes, he felt as though he could read her mind. Nearby sat Theodore Brownstone, Clarence's adoptive father. Stocky, balding, dark-skinned, mustachioed and bearded, Theodore Brownstone has worked for the Biloxi Department of Corrections for the past twenty five years and is damn proud of it. In fact, Theodore and Linda met when the latter protested law enforcement abuses with some friends at the county jail. Talk about a unique match. Decades later, they're still married.

Theodore looked at his wife and son, briefly pausing from his favorite TV show, Raw Eden. The show dealt with themes of science fiction, pitting a family of time travelers against dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. Clarence didn't much care for TV, preferring his computer and video games. As for Linda, she was more of a book and crossword puzzles kind of person. Theodore was always the odd man out in this family, and it sometimes irked him.

"How was school today, Lens?" Theodore demanded, and he cocked an eyebrow when Clarence didn't answer fast enough. Clarence, who royally pissed Theodore by choosing to study at nearby Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College instead of the University of Mississippi, didn't talk about school much. The young man's decision to stay at home instead of stretching his wings was a source of tension between him and the aforementioned man of the house...

"Oh, you know, just the usual, same old," Clarence replied absentmindedly, while looking at his cell phone. Theodore snorted, and rolled his eyes at Linda before he resumed watching Raw Eden. Clarence had always been brilliant, and athletically gifted, but the young man lacked motivation. Linda had given up on pressuring Clarence to use his gifts, and Theodore was rankled by his adoptive son's lack of ambition.

"Yeah, I bet," Theodore grumbled, to no one in particular, ignoring Linda and Clarence for the moment. Clarence was probably texting that annoying gothic lady friend of his, Gina somebody, instead of applying himself. Theodore, the son of poor farmers, lucked out when he got into the department of corrections after a stint in the U.S. Army. He wasn't a college man. Clarence had the physical skills of an athlete and the brains of a genius, but he also possessed all the motivation of a sloth.

"There was a scientist on campus today, a lady from Harvard University, and she spoke about human evolution," Clarence said, and this made Linda smile while Theodore casually shrugged. Clarence grabbed his backpack, took a Pepsi from the fridge and went to his room. Once inside, Clarence plopped himself on his bed and grabbed his laptop. Tapping into the house's Wi-Fi system, Clarence went online. There was a lot of brouhaha in the news, especially since Los Angeles got flooded...again.

"If this flooding continues, we humans are going the way of the dodo," said scholar Katherine Adewale, the Nigerian-born, Harvard-educated lady whom natural sciences professor Kenneth Fallon invited to campus. Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College had seldom hosted such luminaries. A lot of the students in Professor Fallon's class were impressed by the tall, attractive African lady from Harvard, who looked more like a model than an academic. Clarence remembered feeling...weird, when he looked at her.

"Dude, stop gawking, you look thirsty as fuck," said Gina Ambrose, Clarence's erstwhile best friend. Five foot four, chubby, with dark hair, alabaster skin and lime-green eyes, the tattooed and feisty goth gal had been Clarence best friend for ages. Clarence blinked, and realized that he'd been staring at Katherine Adewale for a while. The visiting scholar was going on and on about global warming, continental flooding and other threats to human existence.

"Oh, sorry," Clarence said, and Gina grinned, shaking her head. There were thirty two students in Professor Fallon's class. Most of them looked about as bored as can be expected. Anthropology isn't the most exciting class in the world. For most students, it's an easy elective. Clarence had selected it because sociology and psychology classes were full at the time. Of course he ran into Gina Ambrose there, because, life is funny like that.

For a moment, Clarence's eyes met those of Katherine Adewale, Harvard lecturer and author, and his heart skipped a beat. Clarence remembered feeling quite strange when the lady smiled at him and nodded as though they knew each other. Clarence didn't know everyone in the City of Biloxi, Mississippi, but he'd remember meeting a lady as gorgeous as Katherine Adewale. The lady was definitely a stranger. Why was she looking at him like that?

"Hello brother," said Katherine Adewale, without moving her luscious lips, and Clarence blinked, for he heard the beautiful Nigerian lady scholar's voice in his mind. The young man didn't know what to think. He'd always been unusually insightful, and he often correctly guessed what friends, family members and strangers were thinking. Still, in all of Clarence Brownstone twenty years, he'd never heard another person's voice inside his own skull...until now. What on earth was going on?