Parable of the Sower

It is a year later, 2025. Chapter 4 is preceded by two quotes from The Book of the Living, one that warns that intelligence can be dangerous, and another that argues that victims of God can find the power to shape God. Lauren then says that a three-year-old girl in her neighborhood, Amy Dunn, started a fire in her family’s garage. The neighborhood has a plan for fires, which they execute successfully. Lauren worries about what will happen to Amy, whose mother, Tracy, was only twelve when she got pregnant with her as a result of being raped by her uncle. Sixteen members of the Dunn family live in the same house, and they are known for being crazy. Amy mostly plays alone in the dirt. Lauren asks Cory if Amy could be allowed to start school early, offering to help look after her, and Cory agrees.

Mrs. Sims’s cousins Wardell Parrish and Rosalee Payne inherit her house. They are twins whose spouses have both died. They are suspicious that residents of Lauren’s neighborhood robbed Mrs. Sim’s house in the aftermath of her death, even after Lauren’s father assures them that they are a small community who depend on one another and thus who wouldn’t do something like rob a dead woman’s house. Lauren doesn’t like Payne and Parrish and doesn’t want to have to depend on them.

Lauren is on her way to target practice with a group of kids and adults when they run into a pack of feral dogs. Half of Lauren’s group is white and half black, which can sometimes cause problems, as society is becoming increasingly hostile to interracial socializing. At first the day goes smoothly, but then Curtis and his brother Michael get into an argument with Peter Moss, whose father, Richard, is a “total shit” with three wives and a sexist attitude toward women. Richard practices his own religion, a combination of Old Testament and West African ideas. He is an engineer for a water company and can thus afford to pick up homeless women and make them his wives. Lauren has heard that this kind of arrangement is happening more frequently, and wonders if this is what the future will be like.

Lauren’s father encourages her to practice shooting birds and squirrels with BB guns. She suspects that he wants to know if this will trigger her hyperempathy, which it doesn’t. Lauren wonders if she would be able to shoot a person if she needed to, and whether if she did so she would also die. Her father always carries a gun when he leaves the neighborhood. Cory also has a gun, which she’s lent to Lauren that day. In the past people were sometimes resistant to gun ownership, but now every household has at least two guns hidden away. Kids are taught to handle guns in school and, once they leave at 15, are taken to target practice as a “rite of passage.” Lauren’s shooting is going well when a feral dog walks over. She is standing with her friend Joanne Garfield, who immediately begins to panic. The dog runs away into the bushes.

Another member of the group panics and almost shoots Michael while aiming at a dog. This causes an argument within the group, some of who are more afraid of feral dogs than others. Suddenly, Lauren’s father insists that they all go home. It is only later that Lauren learns it was because her father had found a group of half-eaten corpses––a mother and her two young children. The group keeps walking and hears three shots, then comes across the dog they had seen. It has been shot and is twitching in pain. Lauren is overcome with pain and feels that she is about to throw up. Lauren shoots the dog, feels the blow of the bullet, and almost collapses. Curtis smiles at her and expresses admiration at her shooting ability. Lauren keeps walking in a state of shock.