Will’s mother’s hokey homily – ‘Waste not, want not’ – hisses in his ears as he oscillates furiously on the spot, havering on the threshold between the bedroom and the dying one, all the while cradling the plastic leech of the syringe in the crook of his arm. Oscillating furiously, and, as he presses the plunger home a touch more – and more – he hears it again and again: ‘Waaaste nooot, waaant nooot!’, whooshing into and out of him, while the blackness wells up at the periphery of his vision, and his hackneyed heart begins to beat out weirdly arrhythmic drum fills – even hitting the occasional rim-shot on his resonating rib cage. He waits, paralysed, acutely conscious, that were he simply to press his thumb right home, it’ll be a cartoonish death: That’s all folks! as the aperture screws shut forever.

Author Will Self Published by Penguin Books ISBN 9780141046402 EAN 9780141046402 Bic Code Cover Paperback