Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [485]

“No.” He stared into space. “My job down here is as secure as a job can be. There are no jobs up there. Newcomers work for food if they work at all. Experience doesn’t matter. Education doesn’t matter. There are just too many desperate people. They work their lives away for a sack of beans and they live on the streets.” … “Closed,” he said. “You’ve got to sneak into Oregon if you get in at all. Even harder to sneak into Washington. People get shot every day trying to sneak into Canada. Nobody wants California trash.” — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 485

Note

The escape map is closed door by door, and the father’s sentences shorten as the news worsens, ending on ‘California trash’ — his own self-description delivered without flinch. ‘They work their lives away for a sack of beans’ is the chapter’s bleakest economics, compressed into a single clause. Two adjacent speeches are joined because the second completes the foreclosure the first begins.