Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [2121]

I thought we would die. I believed there was no way for us to survive this sea of fire, hot wind, smoke, and ash. I saw people—strangers—fall, and we left them lying on the highway, waiting to burn. I stopped looking back. In the roar of the fire, I could not hear whether they screamed. I could see the babies before Natividad threw wet rags over them. I knew they were screaming. Then I couldn’t see them, and it was a blessing. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 2121

Note

The paragraph moves by a steady chipping-away of the senses: can’t hear the strangers, can hear the babies, then can’t see them either, and the final clause names the relief as a blessing — a word that normally belongs to deliverance, here used for the end of a sight one could not bear. Short declaratives in the past tense give it the flatness of testimony rather than drama.