Parable of the Talents

me build a house. 'I helped you build this house. Now there's so much more work to do.'

 

Chapter 11

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From EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING

Choose your leaders

with wisdom and forethought.

To be led by a coward

is to be controlled

by all that the coward fears.

To be led by a fool

is to be led

by the opportunists

who control the fool.

To be led by a thief

is to offer up

your most precious treasures

to be stolen.

To be led by a liar

is to ask

to be told lies.

To be led by a tyrant

is to sell yourself

and those you love

into slavery.

I'M NOT CERTAIN how to write about the next episode in my parents' lives and in my life. I'm glad to have no memory of it. I was only two months old when it happened.

It's all very strange, very bad, very confused. If only my mother had agreed to go with my father to live peacefully, normally in Halstead, it wouldn't have happened. Or at least, it wouldn't have happened to us.

from The Journals of Lauren Oya Olamina

monday, september 26, 2033

They didn't shoot their way in. It seems that they don't in­tend to kill us. Yet. Since Dovetree, they have changed. Their leader has come to power. They have acquired... if not legitimacy, at least a shadow of sophistication. Roaring in, shooting everyone, and burning everything is perhaps too crude for them now. Or maybe it's just not as much fun.

I write, not knowing how long I will be able to write. I write because they have not yet robbed us of everything. Our freedom is gone, our two trucks, our land, our business, our homes are gone, stolen from us. But somehow, I still have paper, pens, and pencils. None of our captors values these things, so no one has yet taken them from me. I must keep them hidden or they will be taken. All possessions will be taken. They will strip us. They've made that all too clear. They will break us down, reshape us, teach us what it means to love their country and fear their God.

Our several secret caches of food, weapons, money, cloth­ing, and records have not been found. At least, I don't be­lieve they have been. No one has heard that they have.

We're shut up in two of the rooms of the school. Our books are still here on their shelves. The various projects of our students are still here. Our several phones and our five new teaching computers are gone. They have hard-currency value. Also, they were a means of communicating with the outside. We are not permitted to do that. That would inhibit our reeducation.

I must make a record of all this. I don't want to, but I must. And I must hide that record so that, someday, Earth-seed will know what