Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [40]

I saw at least three people who weren’t going to wake up again, ever. One of them was headless. I caught myself looking around for the head. After that, I tired not to look around at all. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 40

Note

The flatness of “weren’t going to wake up again, ever” is the trick: the euphemism deadens the horror, then the headless corpse punctures it, and humor is what follows — the involuntary search for a missing head is the most humanizing detail in a chapter otherwise full of numb inventory. The self-correction in the final sentence (“tired” for “tried”) lands as exhaustion, not sloppiness.