Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [24]

My stepmother hands me an armload of my youngest brother’s diapers. I take them, walk back toward the house where she has left her big wicker laundry basket, and pile the diapers atop the rest of the clothes. The basket is full. I look to see that my stepmother is not watching me, then let myself fall backward onto the soft mound of stiff, clean clothes. For a moment, the fall is like floating. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 24

Note

The chapter’s key resonance: the dream’s uncontrollable drift is answered by a voluntary fall into laundry. ‘For a moment, the fall is like floating’ converts the nightmare’s terror into a chosen pleasure, and the child’s furtiveness (‘I look to see that my stepmother is not watching me’) keeps it small and private rather than symbolic. Note also ‘stiff, clean clothes’ — the precision of the adjective registering that dried clothes aren’t soft, which quietly justifies why the mound could hold her.