Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [2150]

“I want her clothes,” Emery whispered. She was near me or I wouldn’t have heard her. The dead woman was about her size, and dressed in a cotton shirt and pants that looked almost new. They were dirty, but far less so than Emery’s clothes. … “Strip her, then,” I said. “I’d help you, but I’m not bending too well this morning.” … “I’ll give her a hand,” Allie whispered. Justin was asleep in his carriage with Dominic, so she was free to help with the ordinary, unspeakable things that we did now to live. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 2150

Note

The chapter’s coldest sequence: whispered request, whispered consent, whispered assistance, all around a corpse nobody names. ‘The ordinary, unspeakable things that we did now to live’ is Butler’s own naming of the chapter’s moral ledger, and the logistics (‘about her size,’ ‘almost new’) are what make the horror specific rather than stated.