Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [830]

Cory cornered the black guy and talked to him for as long as he would let her. Will she try now to get us into Olivar? I think she will. After all, without Dad’s salary, she’ll have to do something. I don’t think we have a prayer of being accepted. The insurance company isn’t going to pay—or not for a long time. Its people choose not to believe that Dad is dead. Without proof he can’t be declared legally dead for seven years. Can they hold on to our money for that long? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me. We could starve many times over in seven years. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 830

Note

The bureaucratic seven-year rule arrives as an intimate fact — a family’s food supply as a function of actuarial procedure. ‘We could starve many times over in seven years’ is the arithmetic of the sentence doing the emotional work; no metaphor needed. Note too how the questions stack without answers, an anxious mind circling.