Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [2126]

But we could slow down. We could emerge from the worst of the smoke and ash, and escape the lash of hot winds. We could pause by the side of the road for a moment, and gag in peace. There was a lot of gagging. Coughing and gagging and crying muddy tracks onto our faces. It was incredible. We were going to survive. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 2126

Note

The anaphora of “We could” builds a litany of small mercies, then the paragraph deflates it deliberately with “and gag in peace” — the bathetic turn that makes the survival real rather than heroic. Fragments without subjects (“Coughing and gagging and crying muddy tracks onto our faces.”) strip the bodies down to verbs. “Muddy tracks” makes the tears visible on ash-dirty skin.