Parable of the Sower

Robledo burns. Paints enter the community and kill many people in the neighborhood. Lauren grabs her pack and a gun from Edwin Dunn’s dead body, shoots a paint who grabs her, and walks towards the hills to the north, going along back streets. She wonders what she will do, homeless and alone.

She finds a burned-out house and crawls under it to rest. In the morning, Lauren awakens after a restless night and realizes she must go home. She needs to know what happened to her family, although she’s afraid of what she will find: “No matter. I have to go and see. I have to go home” (163).

No houses escaped the burning. Scavengers are stripping everything. She goes in, trying to find signs of her old community but only sees the dead. There’s a green-faced paint dead on her porch and people ransacking her home. She anonymously ransacks it along with them, retrieving clothes, a holster, food, toiletries, and the money from under the lemon tree. She finds more dead neighbors—Richard Moss, purveyor of his own religion, Robin Balter, Michael Talcott, 8-year-old Lydia Cruz, and many others. She cannot find her family.

Zahra Moss and

Don't Miss Out!

Access Study Guide Now