Autumn (Seasonal, #1)

by Ali Smith

Regrets when you’re dead? A past when you’re dead? Is there never any escaping the junkshop of the self?

Someone killed an MP, she tells Daniel’s back as she struggles to keep up. A man shot her dead and came at her with a knife. Like shooting her wouldn’t be enough. But it’s old news now. Once it would have been a year’s worth of news. But news right now is like a flock of speeded-up sheep running off the side of a cliff.

I’m tired of liars. I’m tired of sanctified liars. I’m tired of how those liars have let this happen. I’m tired of having to wonder whether they did it out of stupidity or did it on purpose. I’m tired of lying governments. I’m tired of people not caring whether they’re being lied to any more. I’m tired of being made to feel this fearful. I’m tired of animosity. I’m tired of pusillanimosity.

Always be reading something, he said. Even when we’re not physically reading. How else will we read the world? Think of it as a constant.

She hadn’t known that proximity to lies, even just reading about them, could make you feel so ill.