Page 38 - The Muse 2019-20 Issue

from when she was about the same age as the girl. Further into the file, Noor found a copy of her own birth certificate and a page that had two columns of genetic data and one column said N1 and the other said N2, and at the bottom of the page were the words “100% Match” in large thick bold letters and a checkmark and her father’s writing of the date of Noor’s birth. Noor was puzzled but recognized that not being a scientist, she had no way to interpret what this meant. Noor closed the file and put it into her backpack and walked out of the office. Before Noor closed the door to the office, she called for Rinko and said to him, “Be sure to pack all of the items in my parents’ office and put them into the long-term storage pods.”
The first few months of adjusting to life in Washington D.C. came easy for Noor and her Aunt Jehan. The two women had developed a really easy flow of living together and the fact that Noor’s school was a mere three blocks away from Jehan’s apartment meant that walking to and from school was super easy. Prior to her parents’ death, it was a lifelong dream of Noor’s to walk to and from school. Jehan was actually Noor’s mom’s cousin and was in her mid-thirties and happily unmarried. Having her niece stay with her helped fill up an otherwise empty townhouse. The only real addition from back home that Noor brought with her was their family robot Rinko. Rinko proved to be just as capable in managing Jehan’s small townhouse as it was in running Noor’s parents’ larger house. The constant smells of comfort from the kitchen of dishes that Rinko would effortlessly make were always a welcome for the two women.
Jehan’s life in D.C. was spent immersed in her work as an assistant curator at the National Museum of African American History. Jehan was an anthropologist and expert in the musical traditions of West Africa. She had attended college and graduate school at Georgetown University and had made herself at home in D.C. since the age of 17. Jehan’s network of friends proved to be her version of family, and that meant she was seldom alone and helped her work through the fact that she could never biologically have children of her own. Noor had been a major source of light in Jehan’s life and ever since her older cousin Aliyah had brought Noor to D.C. years ago, the two had remained close.
Noor spent much of her time in D.C. making new friends at school and talking endlessly to Kat and her squad back in Florida. One afternoon, Noor decided to open up the file called Project Ibeji and do some research on some of the terms in the file. Again, and again she kept coming up with a sense that there was something curious about the girl in the file named Noura. When Noor looked on the back of the picture again, she noticed that the picture of the girl was taken back in Trinidad on a small beach called Pigeon Point. Noor researched the beach and realized that it was a place on the smaller island of Tobago. Noor google image searched Noura and came up with a name of a Noura Ismail who had lived and died in Tobago and owned some sort of restaurant. Noor closed the file and fell asleep listening to some ambient music that Rinko had streaming throughout the house.
St. Pete Beach was a place of calm and beauty that Noor enjoyed walking most early mornings with either her mom or dad. The Gulf of Mexico waters swirled like a warm and seafoam laden jacuzzi during the magical months of summer and they had a rejuvenating power that Noor truly enjoyed.
As Noor and her dad walked on the shoreline pausing to skip stones, her dad paused. “Noor have you ever heard of the Nigerian story of the Ibeji twins?”
Noor looked up from the Gulf waters and said, “No Dad. I have never heard of this.”
Hasan continued, “In the tribal tradition of Nigeria, there was a famous pairing of twins called the Ibeji. These twins were believed by many to actually be two people who shared one soul. The Ibeji twins were believed to have magical powers. Even with a shared soul, each twin begins their journey at a different point in time.” Noor heard these words and then slowly looked at the Gulf waters and saw a massive wave coming their way. The wave rose over fifty feet into the sky and was approaching her and her dad at such an alarming rate that it would clearly swallow them into the ocean. Noor closed her eyes, took a deep breath and prepared for this tidal wave to engulf them. But, when she opened her eyes, she only saw the inside of her Aunt’s townhouse. The entire sequence on the beach with her father had been a dream, but a secret had been revealed to her.
The Uber ride over to the National Museum of African American History took less than seven minutes for Noor. Once she entered the museum, the security lady at the front desk knew her from Noor’s countless visits to her aunt and waved a friendly hello. On any normal day, Noor would have stopped for a chat before heading to the museum. Today however, Noor was on a mission. The short elevator ride up
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