Imagine We Win

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LISTENING: to my boyfriend cough obnoxiously
FEELING: better after seeing my doctor
SEEING: my cat chill on his new window hammock

I started to re-read Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower." I can't remember when exactly I first read the prophetic sci-fi series. I was still living at my old place, so it must have been 2021 or 2022.

I started to read it again for a few reasons: I bought an adorable bucket list calendar where one of this month's prompts was to re-read a favorite book, and because 2025 just began, which is when a good chunk of the book takes place. I'm still in the early chapters, but I'm equally impressed and terrified by Butler's writing. The book published in 1993, the year I was born.

More than 30 years ago, she knew what was coming: the fires in L.A., the homeless crisis, the drug crisis, the widening inequality gap, the violence. How did she imagine such things?

As I'm reading the book for a second time, I'm noticing some things I didn't quite catch before. Though we largely see the world through the eyes of the main character, who is born low-income, she gives us glimmers of the world of the wealthy. They have TVs with virtual headsets and butlers and maids.

I find myself thinking a lot these days about the 1%. The people who can afford to not worry about the climate crisis. The ones who can't even begin to imagine the unspeakable pain the rest of us feel. The billionaires who have built insane doomsday bunkers. The Big Tech bros who sat front row at the inauguration of President Donald Trump Monday.

There's lots to say about the first week of Trump 2.0. I'm still processing. I can't think much about Trump's executive orders on energy because I'm so distraught by what he's trying to do to immigrant families. I hope the stories I'm working on can provide some emotional clarity. They already are.

On a call today with an activist, he shared that some climate organizers plan to stand in solidarity with immigrants — that they'll put their bodies on the line to protect families and keep them together. They have experience doing just that to stop pipeline construction or create police blockades during direct actions. Now, those skills will translate to fighting Trump's most inhumane policy proposals.

I found tears welling in my eyes when he shared that. I needed the reminder that I'm not alone — that climate justice is migrant justice. I needed a sign that we got this. I needed someone to shake me out of my loneliness and show me a future where we all win, together. I had stopped imagining such things over the last few weeks. I needed to remember again.

Maybe the nightmares Butler paints in "Parable of the Sower" will continue to come true. But maybe so will the beauty she illustrates — of community and love and empathy and faith and living with the land. More than anything, she reminds us to gaze at the stars and marvel at the miraculousness of it all.

Her writing is an ode to the brilliance of imagination. That's the power of science fiction. It gives us room to imagine a brighter world even when reality feels so dark.

Every year, Grist publishes an annual assortment of short sci-fi pieces for its Imagine 2200 initiative. I have an excerpt to share from this year's first-place winner: "Meet Me Under the Molakhia" by Sage Hoffman Nadeau. It's a story of mystery and love, queerness and generational trauma. Amid all the awful news, we could all use some sci-fi romance. 🌀

When she closed her eyes, all she could see was the black flash of Zahra’s eyes, the faint smirk on her lips. There was no denying it. Nadia’s heart had been stolen by a djinn.

It wasn’t as simple as deciding to let herself fall. Baba had been killed five years after they returned to Lebanon, when she was 17 and Fairus was 8. Mama had been shattered, their entire family fracturing around the loss of their father. 

Nadia would’ve done anything for them, and instead she ended up doing everything. Now she was the ripe age of 22, and she’d barely begun to learn what it meant to want something of her own.

But Zahra. 

She sat up, a groan leaving her lips. It was no use. She’d never fall asleep like this.

Her feet were silent on the stone staircase as she padded downstairs. There were still embers burning in the old stone basin, and she filled the pot before placing it over the top.

Once it came to a rolling boil, she dropped some cracked cardamom pods inside, followed by a splash of rosewater and sugar. Watching as the liquid turned from amber to tan with the milk, Nadia poured the tea into a thermos and left the house. If she thought about what she was about to do, she’d come to her senses and return to bed. 

The night air was soft on her skin, and she tiptoed across the courtyard, glad she was wearing black. She blended in with the night now, except for the silver thermos.

Tucking it under her arm, she reached for the latch of the gate and slipped out into the street. Or at least, she tried to, because as her foot left the threshold, she slammed headfirst into something warm and solid.

Nadia opened her mouth to scream, but before she could, the person she’d collided with clapped their hand over her mouth. She struggled, but their other arm had wrapped around her shoulders and Nadia was whisked behind the arbor before she could do anything.

The scent of night-blooming yasmeen flooded her senses, and her boot caught on a small stone. She flailed out, kicking it as hard as she could at the person holding her. A muffled grunt came from the shadows, telling her the stone had met its mark, and she felt a vicious satisfaction. 

When their grip loosened, she was ready, and she blindly grabbed for the rake she knew was resting somewhere against the wall. Her fingers encountered the handle and she whipped it toward her, not caring that it left splinters in her palms. She kicked again at the legs of her attacker, fighting their grasp until she could grip the rake with two hands. 

One shot, she told herself. She refused to go out this way, leaving Fairus and Mama alone. 

Read the full story for Grist's Imagine 2200 here.

Rest in Power

While we can't say for certain that climate change led to these specific weather events (we need attribution studies for that), we do know that the Earth's rising temperatures are already creating more disasters like these.