Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [878]

But there was no shaking, no unfamiliar noise, no smoke. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t at our house. … I ran outside to see what was needed, and saw at once. The Payne-Parrish house was fully involved, surrounded by fire. One of the watchers on duty was still sounding the alarm. People spilled from all the houses, and must have seen as I did that the Parrish house was a total loss. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 878

Note

The narrative logic of a walled community in miniature: the alarm’s ambiguity is triaged by elimination, then the answer arrives all at once in one flat sentence. Butler never lingers on the spectacle; the sentence ‘was fully involved, surrounded by fire’ is the whole description, and the neighbors’ reaction is already action — beating and wetting the grounds.