Octavia Butler, "Speech Sounds" what is this passage about I hated going to see her. She was a good person, I loved her, and I hated watching her die. Nevertheless, every Saturday I got on a bus- I don 't drive- and went to her hos pital room or her apartment. She got thinner and frailer and querulous with pain. I got more depressed. One Saturday, as I sat on a crowded, smelly bus, trying to keep people from stepping on my ingrown toenail and trying not to think of terrible things, I noticed trouble brewing just across from me. One man had decided he didn't like the way another man was looking at him. Didn't like it at all! It's hard to know where to look when you're wedged in place on a crowded