Parable of the Sower

by Octavia E. Butler

Sower

There’s a big, early-season storm blowing itself out in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s bounced around the Gulf, killing people from Florida to Texas and down into Mexico. There are over 700 known dead so far. One hurricane.

In New York and New Jersey, a measles epidemic is killing people. Measles!”

Our adults haven’t been wiped out by a plague so they’re still anchored in the past, waiting for the good old days to come back. But things have changed a lot, and they’ll change more. Things are always changing. This is just one of the big jumps instead of the little step-by-step changes that are easier to take. People have changed the climate of the world. Now they’re waiting for the old days to come back.”

“Nothing is going to save us. If we don’t save ourselves, we’re dead.

“Live!” Dad said. “That’s all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. I don’t know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won’t matter if we don’t survive these times.”

And they knew the cops liked to solve cases by “discovering” evidence against whomever they decided must be guilty. Best to give them nothing. They never helped when people called for help. They came later, and more often than not, made a bad situation worse.

This business sounds half antebellum revival and half science fiction.

All successful life is Adaptable, Opportunistic, Tenacious, Interconnected, and Fecund. Understand this. Use it.

“I cannot help you until you suffer the way I want you to suffer, express your pain in a way that pleases my ears—and stop doing both when I’ve heard enough,”