Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [250]

Most bullets wouldn’t have gotten through the gate. It’s supposed to be bulletproof. But it’s been penetrated a couple of times before, high up, near the top. Now we have six new bullet holes in the lower portion—six holes and a seventh dent, a long, smooth gauge where a bullet had glanced off without breaking through. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 250

Note

The paragraph moves from abstract reassurance (‘supposed to be bulletproof’) to forensic accounting, and the precise tally — six holes, a seventh dent, the glancing ‘smooth gauge’ — makes the breached gate read as a body with old scars and new wounds. Precision here is grief’s way of holding onto something countable.