Parable of the Talents

by Octavia E. Butler

As I was born, she died. Before that, for two years, she took the popular “smart drug” of her time. It was a new prescription medicine called Paracetco, and it was doing wonders for people who had Alzheimer’s disease. It stopped the deterioration of their intellectual function and enabled them to make excellent use of whatever memory and thinking ability they had left. It also boosted the performance of ordinary, healthy young people. They read faster, retained more, made more rapid, accurate connections, calculations, and conclusions. As a result, Paracetco became as popular as coffee among students, and, if they meant to compete in any of the highly paid professions, it was as necessary as a knowledge of computers. My mother’s drug taking may have helped to kill her. I don’t know for sure. My father didn’t know either. But I do know that her drug left its unmistakable mark on me—my hyperempathy syndrome. Thanks to the addictive nature of Paracetco—a few thousand people died trying to break the habit—there were once tens of millions of us.