Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [969]

I snatched the packet in no more time than it had taken to pick up a couple of lemons a moment before. First I spotted the hiding place, then I snatched up the money packet along with a hand full of dirt. Then, eager to leave, but terrified of drawing attention to myself, I picked up a few more lemons and hunted around for more food. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 969

Note

The whole passage is built on the pressure between what the hands are doing (lemons, dirt, money) and what the body is feeling; the shopping gesture is simultaneously the crime and the alibi. Note the flat, procedural ‘First… Then… Then’ — the narrator’s survival voice reduces terror to an ordered list of motions, and the deliberate repetition of ‘snatched’ keeps the deed ahead of the thought.