Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [896]

The thieves did take Cory’s sewing machine. It was a compact, sturdy old machine with its own carrying case. Both case and machine were gone. That was a real blow. Cory and I both use that machine to make, alter, and repair clothing for the family. I had thought I might even be able to earn some money with the machine, sewing for other people in the neighborhood. Now the machine is gone. Sewing for the family will have to be done by hand. It will take much more time, and may not look like what we’re used to. Bad. Hard. But not a fatal blow. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 896

Note

The stripped, staccato sentence fragments (‘Bad. Hard. But not a fatal blow.’) enact the narrator’s method of absorbing loss by immediately inventorying what remains. The turn from grief to assessment in a single breath is the book’s survival grammar made visible in syntax.