Parable of the Talents p-2

by Butler, Octavia

  Dan had played dead while the intruders were there. He had given no sign of life, even when one of the intruders kicked him. Stoic, indeed. He heard them trying to get into the truck. He heard them cursing, laughing, shouting, heard two of his sisters screaming as he had never heard anyone scream. He heard his own heart beating. He thought he was dying, bleeding to death in the dirt while his family was murdered.

  Yet he did not die. He lost consciousness and regained it more than once. He lost track of time. The intruders were there, then they were gone. He could hear them, then he couldn't. His sisters were screaming, crying, moaning, then they were silent.

  He moved. Then gasping and groaning with pain, he man­aged to sit up. His legs hurt so as he tried to stand that he screamed aloud and fell down again. His mind, blurred by pain, blood loss, and horror, he looked around for his fam­ily. There, near his legs, wet with his blood and her own was his mother.

  He dragged himself to her, then sat holding her head on his lap. How long he sat here, all but mindless, he did not know. Then his little sisters were shaking him, talking to him.

  He stared at them. It took him a long time to realize that they were really there, alive, and that behind them, the truck was open again. Then he knew he had to get his parents in­side it. He had to drive them back down to the highway and into a town where there was a hospital, or at least a doctor. He was afraid his father might be dead, but he couldn't be sure. He knew his mother was alive. He could hear her breathing. He had felt the pulse in her neck. He had to get help for her.

  Somehow, he did get them both into the truck. This was a long, slow, terrible business. His legs hurt so. He felt so weak. He had grown fast, and been proud of being man-sized and man-strong. Now he felt as weak as a baby, and once he had dragged his parents into the truck, he was too exhausted to climb into one of the driver's seats and drive. He couldn't get help for his parents or look for his two lost sisters. He had to, but he couldn't. He collapsed and lay on the floor, unable to move. His consciousness faded. There was nothing.

  ************************************

  It was a familiar sort of story—horrible and ordinary. Al­most everyone in Acorn has a horrible, ordinary story to tell.

  Today we gave the Noyer children oak seedlings to plant in earth that has been mixed with the ashes of their parents. We do this in memory of our own dead, present and absent. None of the ashes of my family are here, but five years ago when we decided to stay here, I planted trees in their mem­ory. Others have done the same for their dead. Nina and Paula Noyer's ashes aren't here of course. Nina and Paula may not even be dead. But they will be remembered here along with their parents. Once Dan understood the cere­mony, he asked for trees for Nina and Paula as well as for his parents.

  He said, "Some nights I wake up still hearing them screaming, hearing those bastards laughing. Oh, god……..They must be dead. But maybe they're not. I don't know. Sometimes I wish I were dead. Oh god."

  We've phoned our neighbors and friends in nearby towns about Nina and Paula Noyer. We've left their names, their descriptions (garnered from what Dan told me), and the offer of a reward in hard currency—Canadian money. I doubt that anything will come of it, but we have to try. It isn't as though we have an abundance of hard currency to spread around, but because we're so careful, we do have some. Because of the truck, we'll soon have more. To tell the truth, I'd try to buy the girls back even if there were no truck. It's one thing to know that there are children on the roads and in the towns being made to suffer for someone else's pleasure. It's another to know that the two sisters of children you know and like are being made to suffer. But there is the truck. All the more reason for us to do what we can for the Noyer children.

  We brought Dan to the funeral services on a cot that we used as a stretcher. He can stand and walk. Bankole makes him do a little of that every day. But he's still not up to standing or sitting for long periods of time. We put him next to the slender young trees that Bankole planted five years ago in memory of his sister and her family, who had lived on this property before us. They were murdered before we ar­rived. Their bodies were burned with their home. All we found of them were their charred bones and a couple of rings. These are buried beneath the trees just at the spot where Dan lay for the funeral.

  The little girls planted their seedlings under our guidance, but not with our help. The work was done by their hands. Perhaps the planting of tiny trees in earth mixed with ashes doesn't mean much now, but they'll grow up knowing that their parents' remains are here, that living trees grow from those remains, and that today this community began to be their home.

  We moved Dan's cot so that he could use the garden trowel and watering can, and we let him plant his own seedlings. He, too, did what he had to do without help. The ritual was already important to him. It was something he could do for his sisters and his parents. It was all he could do for them.

  When he had finished, he said the Lord's Prayer. It was the only formal prayer he knew. The Noyers were nominal Christians—a Catholic mother, an Episcopalian father, and kids who had never seen the inside of a church.

  Dan talked his sisters into singing songs in Polish—songs their mother had taught them. They don't speak Polish, which is a pity. I'm always glad when we can learn another language. No one in their family spoke Polish except Krista, who had come with her parents from Poland to escape war and uncertainty in Europe. And look what the poor woman had stepped into.

  The girls sang their songs. As young as they were, they had clear, sweet voices. They were a delight to hear. Their mother must have been a good teacher. When they had fin­ished, and all the seedlings were watered in, a few members of the community stood up to quote from Earthseed verses, the Bible, The Book of Common Prayer, the Bhagavad-Gita, John Donne. The quotations took the place of the words mat friends and family would have said to remember and give respect to the dead.

  Then I said the words of the Earthseed verses that we've come to associate with funerals, and with remembering the dead.

  "God is Change," I began.

  Others repeated in soft voices, "God is Change. Shape God." Habits of repetition and response have grown up al­most without prompting among us. Sad to say, we've had so many funerals in our brief existence as a community that this ritual in particular is very familiar. Only last week, we planted trees and spoke words for the Dovetrees. I said,

  "We give our dead

  To the orchards

  And the groves.

  We give our dead

  To We."

  I paused, took a deep breath, and continued in slow mea­sured tones.

  "Death

  Is a great Change—

  Is life's greatest Change.

  We honor our beloved dead.

  As we mix their essence with the earth,

  We remember them,

  And within us,

  They live."

  "We remember," the others whispered. "They live."

  I stood silent for a moment, gazing out toward the tall per­simmon, avocado, and citrus trees. Bankole's sister and brother-in-law had planted these trees, had brought them as young plants from southern California, half expecting them to die here in a cooler climate. According to Bankole, many of them did die, but some survived as the climate changed, warmed. Old-timers among our neighbors complain about the loss of their fog, rain, and cool temperatures. We don't mind, those of us from southern California. To us it's as though we've come to a somewhat gentler version of the homes we were forced to leave. Here, there is still water, space, not too much debilitating heat, and some peace. Here, one can still have orchards and groves. Here, life can still come from death.

  The little girls had gone back to sit with May. May hugged them, one small, dark-haired child in each arm, all three of them still, solemn, listening.

  I began a new verse, almost a chant, "

  Darkness

  Gives shape to the light

  As light

 
Shapes the darkness.

  Death

  Gives shape to life

  As life

  Shapes death.

  God

  And the universe

  Share this wholeness

  Each

  Defining the other:

  God

  Gives shape to the universe

  As the universe

  Shapes God "

  And then, after a moment of silence, the last, the closing words:

  "We have lived before

  We will live again

  We will be silk,

  Stone,

  Mind,

  Star,

  We will be scattered,

  Gathered,

  Molded

  Probed.

  We will live,

  And we will serve life.

  We will shape God

  And God will shape us

  Again,

  Always again

  Forevermore."

  Some people whispered that last word—echoed it. Zahra quoted in a voice almost too soft to be heard,

  "God is Change,

  And in the end

  God prevails."

  Her husband Harry put his arm around her, and I saw that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. She and Harry may be the most loyal, least religious people in the community, but there are times when people need religion more than they need anything else—even people like Zahra and Harry.

  Chapter 4

  □ □□

  From EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING

  To shape God

  With wisdom and forethought,

  To benefit your world,

  Your people,

  Your life,

  Consider consequences,

  Minimize harm

  Ask questions,

  Seek answers,

  Learn,

  Teach.

  from Memories of Other Worlds

  Our coast redwood trees are dying.

  Sequoia sempervirens is the botanical name for this tallest of all trees, but many are evergreen no longer. Little by lit­tle from the tops down, they are turning brown and dying.

  I do not believe that they are dying as a result of the heat. As I recall, there were many redwoods growing around the Los Angeles area—Pasadena, Altadena, San Marino, places like that. I saw them there when I was young. My mother had relatives in Pasadena and she used to take me with her when she went to visit them. Redwoods growing that far south reached nothing like the height of their kind here in the north, but they did survive. Later, as the climate changed, I suppose they died as so many of the trees down south died—or they were chopped down and used to build shelters or to feed the cooking fires of the homeless.

  And now our younger trees have begun to die. This part of Humboldt County along the coast and in the hills—the local people call these coastal hills "mountains"—was cooler when I was a boy. It was foggy and rainy—a soft, green climate, friendly to most growing things. I believe it was already changing nearly 30 years ago when I bought the land that became Acorn. In the not-too-distant future, I sup­pose it will be little different from the way coastal southern California was a few decades ago—hot, semiarid, more brown than green most of the time. Now we are in the mid­dle of the change. We still get a few substantial fall and win­ter storms each year, and there are still morning fogs in the spring and early summer.

  Nevertheless, young redwood trees—those only about a century old, not yet mature—are withering. A few miles to the north and south of us in the old national and state parks, the groves of ancient giants still stand. A few hundred acres of them here and there have been released by the govern­ment, sold to wealthy, usually foreign interests, and logged. And squatters have cut and burned a number of individual trees, as usual, to build shelters and feed cooking fires, but the majority of the protected ones, millennia old, resistant to disease, fire, and climate change, still stand. If people let them alone, they will go on, childless, anachronistic, but still alive, still reaching futilely skyward.

  ************************************

  My father, perhaps because of his age, seems to have been a loving pessimist. He saw little good in our future. According to his writing, our greatness as a country, perhaps even the greatness of the human species, was in the past. His greatest desire seems to have been to protect my mother and later, to protect me—to somehow keep us safe.

  My mother, on the other hand, was a somewhat reluctant optimist. Greatness for her, for Earthseed, for humanity al­ways seemed to run just ahead of her. Only she saw it, but that was enough to entice her on, seducing her as she se­duced others.

  She worked hard at seducing people. She did it first by adopting vulnerable needy people, then by finding ways to make those people want to be part of Earthseed. No matter how ridiculous Earthseed must have seemed, with its starry Destiny, it offered immediate rewards. Here was real com­munity. Here was at least a semblance of security. Here was the comfort of ritual and routine and the emotional satisfac­tion of belonging to a "team" that stood together to meet challenge when challenge came. And for families, here was a place to raise children, to teach them basic skills that they might not learn elsewhere and to keep them as safe as possi­ble from the harsh, ugly lessons of the world outside.

  When I was in high school, I read the 1741 Jonathan Ed­wards sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." its first few words sum up the kinds of lessons so many children were forced to learn in the world outside Acorn. Edwards said, "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire." You're worthless. God hates you. All you deserve is pain and death. What a believable the­ology that would have been for the children of the Pox. No wonder, some of them found comfort in my mother's God. If it didn't love them, at least it offered them some chance to live.

  If my mother had created only Acorn, the refuge for the homeless and the orphaned.... If she had created Acorn, but not Earthseed, then I think she would have been a wholly ad­mirable person.

  from The Journals of Lauren Oya Olamina

  sunday, october 24, 2032

  Dan is much better. He's still limping, but he's healing fast. He sat through Gathering today for the first time. We held it indoors at the school because it's been raining—a good steady cold rain—for two days.

  Dan sat through a welcoming and a discussion that his family's truck had helped to provoke. The welcoming was for Adela Ortiz's baby, Javier Verdugo Ortiz. Javier was the child of a brutal highway gang rape, and Adela, who came to us pregnant only seven months ago, had not known whether she wanted us to welcome him, had not even known whether or not she wanted to keep him. Then he was born and she said he looked like her long-dead younger brother, and she loved him at once, and couldn't think of giving him up and would we welcome him, please? Now we have.

  Adela has no other family left, so several of us made lit­tle gifts for him. I made her a pouch that she can use to carry the baby on her back. Thanks to Natividad, who has carried each of her babies that way, backpacking babies has become the custom for new mothers here at Acorn.

  Adela chose Michael and Noriko to stand with her. They took their places on either side of her as the baby slept in her arms, and we filed past, each of us looking at Javier and giv­ing him gentle, welcoming touches on each tiny hand and the black-haired head. He has the full head of hair of a much older child. Adela says her brother was that way too. She had helped to take care of her brother when he was a baby and now she feels very much that God has given him back to her. I know that when she talks about God, she doesn't mean what I mean. I'm not sure that matters. If she stays with us, obeys our rules, joins in our joys, sorrows, and celebrations, works alongside us, it doesn't matter. And in the future, when her son says "God," I think he will mean what I mean.r />
  These are the words of welcoming:

  "Javier Verdugo Ortiz

  We, your people

  Welcome you.

  We are Earthseed.

  You are Earthseed—

  One of many

  One unique,

  One small seed,

  One great promise.

  Tenacious of life,

  Shaper of God,

  Water,

  Fire,

  Sculptor,

  Clay,

  You are Earthseed!

  And your Destiny,

  The Destiny of Earthseed,

  Is to take root

  Among the stars."

  They're good words. Not good enough to welcome a child into the world and into the community. No words are good enough to do that, and yet, somehow, words are needed. Ceremony is needed. As I spoke the words, the peo­ple sang them softly. Travis Douglas and Gray Mora have set several Earthseed verses to music. Travis can write music. Gray can hear it inside himself and then sing it to Travis.

  When the words, the music, and the touching were over, when the Kardoses had accepted Adela as their sister and Javier as their nephew and Adela had accepted them, when all three had given their sworn promise before the community, Javier woke up wanting to nurse and Adela had to go back to her seat with him. Beautiful timing.

  So many members of our community have come to us alone or with only little children that it seems best for me to do what I can to create family bonds that take in more than the usual godparent-godchild relationship. All too often, back in my old neighborhood in Robledo, that was no rela­tionship at all. Aside from giving occasional gifts, people did not take it seriously. I want it taken seriously here. I've made that clear to everyone. No one has to take on the responsibil­ity of joining in this way to another family, but anyone who does take that responsibility has made a real commitment The family relationship is not only with the new child, but with its parents as well. We are too young a community for me to say for sure how well this will work in the future, but people seem to accept it. We're used to depending on one an­other.