Declan Tan

[Below is an excerpt from Declan Tan’s debut novel. As much a work of philosophy as a work of literature, it takes the reader in and out of abstract spaces, and exists somewhere in the space between 1984 and Infinite Jest. It’s a small book that packs a big punch. Enjoy!]

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In this life we have everything backward. Born into death. Politeness before truth. The suicidal earth sets itself alight. And just as how death comes before life for some of us, man does not work because he has something to offer the world. Instead he is forced to work because he is told something can be offered to him. Forced to cultivate a personality beneficial to the slow suicide of the Earth. And where do we find acceptance? Always in another, always external. Rarely in these conditions could we hope to find it within. And we are taught many things out of blindness. We are told some are born for Greatness. We are told some have Greatness thrust upon them. This too is backward. Most, if not all, have idiocy thrust upon them. And then, again, som are born to it. And one day there will be no bone left to grind Some speckled wind will blow its heavy breath across our vision and over our trees and leave us all in the hollow.

Or is it not us but simply the murderous sun that has forsaken us? I lit a rotten cigarette and watched its burning ember glow, the ash over-running its edge until the small orange hum of heat was lost in the gray-black. I blink and wash my eyes with sparse tears.

The foreign body sensation.