floor, I don’t care.”
“All right,” I said, not caring where he slept. I lay down on the bed without taking off even my shoes, and drew my body into a fetal ball on top of the bedclothes. I either fell asleep that way or I passed out again.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2025
Keith came home tonight while Dad was visiting over at the Talcott house. I suspect that Keith hung around and watched the house and waited until Dad left. He had come to see Cory. He brought her a lot of money done up in a fat roll.
She stared at it, then took it, dazed. “So much, Keith,” she whispered. “Where did you get it?”
“It’s for you,” he said. “All for you, not him.”
He took her hand and closed it around the money-and she let him do it, though she had to know it must be stolen money or drug money or worse.
Keith gave Bennett and Gregory big, expensive bars of milk chocolate with peanuts. He just smiled at Marcus and me— an obvious “fuck you” smile. Then, before Dad could come home and find him here, he left again. Cory hadn’t realized that he was leaving again, and she all but screamed and clung to him.
“No! You’ll be killed out there! What’s the matter with you? Stay home!”
“Mama, I won’t let him beat me again,” he said. “I don’t need him hitting me and telling me what to do.
Pretty soon, I’ll be able to make more money in a day than he can in a week— maybe in a month.
“You’ll be killed!”
“No I won’t. I know what I’m doing.” He kissed her, then, with surprising ease, took her arms from around him. “I’ll come back and see you,” he said.
“I’ll bring you presents.
And he vanished out the back door, and was gone.
2026
Civilization is to groups whatintelligence is to individuals. It is ameans of combining theintelligence of many to achieveongoing group adaptation.
Civilization, like intelligence mayserve well, serve adequately, orfail to serve its adaptive function.
When civilization fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is actedupon by unifying internal orexternal forces.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
by Lauren Oya Olamina
10
When apparent stability disintegrates, As it mustN
God is ChangeN
People tend to give in
To fear and depression,
To need and greed.
When no influence is strong enough
To unify people
They divide.
They struggle,
One against one,
Group against group,
For survival, position, power.
They remember old hates and generate new ones, They create chaos and nurture it.
They kill and kill and kill,
Until they are exhausted and destroyed, Until they are conquered by outside forces, Or until one of them becomes
A leader
Most will follow,
Or a tyrant
Most fear.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2026
Keith came home yesterday, bigger than ever, as tall and lean as Dad is tall and broad. He’s not quite 14, but he already looks like the man he wants so much to be. We’re like that, we Olaminas— tall, sturdy, fast growing people. Except for Gregory who is only nine, we all tower over Cory. I’m still the tallest, but my height seems to annoy her these days. She loves Keith’s size, though— her big son. She just hates the fact that he doesn’t live with us anymore.
“I got a room,” he said to me yesterday. We talked, he and I. Cory was with Dorotea Cruz who is one of her best friends and who has just had another baby.
The other boys were playing in the street and on the island. Dad had gone to the college, and would be gone overnight. Now, more than ever, it’s safest to go out just at dawn, and not to try coming home until just at dawn
