Earthseed: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents

by Octavia E. Butler

Embrace diversity.

Embrace diversity Or be destroyed.

southward toward the coast.

Is there no route to the coast going north?

So many people hoping for so much up where it still rains every year,

“Scavenge,” she said. “Take what people don’t need no more. If you’re dead, you don’t need much.”

I groaned.

He was still raw about what had happened the night before. He had killed a man. That bothered him. I had killed a man in a much more cold-blooded way, according to him, and it didn’t bother me. But my “cold-bloodedness” bothered him.

to me pain was the evil. Death was an end to pain. No Bible verses were going to change that

He didn’t understand sharing. Why should he? Most people knew little...

he liked having something to read and talk about.

brief verses that might take hold of him without his realizing it and live in his memory without his intending that they should. Bits of the Bible had done that to me, staying with me even after I stopped believing.

There’s no narcotic like exhaustion.

Haha - lucky sharer

Haha

Haha

Three would not stop determined thugs, but it would stop opportunists—and most predators are opportunists.

My father used to call them coyotes.

a woman who was carrying a sizable pack and a baby. The man with her grabbed the coyote who had taken the water,

Haha

Going due north at last

Haha

Haha

Late today we came within sight of the ocean.

None of us have ever seen it before,

None of us can swim. We’ve never before seen water enough to swim in.

Haha

Maybe this was a safer place than any we’d seen so far.

We settled in against the remnants of a small building. We were always, it seemed, looking for walls to shield us.

It just felt better to have at least one wall.

Haha

it could be strained through sand to get rid of more of the salt. That meant if we stayed near the coast, we could survive even if we ran short of water. That was good to know.

We still had our shadows.

Haha - sure, why not?

it occurred to me that prone was a good shooting position for me. Sharing would be less able to incapacitate me at once if I shot two-handed and prone.

Gawd she’s smart. Always open to new learning.

Was it the sound that scared them or the fact that one of them had been hit?

Good question

Haha

“You’ve adopted those damned people.”

I’d pretty much adopted him and Zahra,

Travis Charles Douglas, Gloria Natividad Douglas,

Dominic Douglas,

Ooops - what’s her boy name? Or Loren = can be either.

“Hardly ever cries,” Travis said with quiet pride.

day. I like her, feel inclined to trust her. I’ll have to be careful about that.

Haha

Haha

I felt alone between the two couples. I let them talk about their hopes and rumors of northern edens.

My name is androgynous, in pronunciation at least—Lauren sounds like the more masculine Loren.

“The three of us aren’t going to help you look strong,”

“I can take care of my wife and my son,”

It was our day off, our day of rest.