This excerpt from DBC Pierre's Lights Out in Wonderland 
is brought to you courtesy of The Excerpt Reader:
Per els somnis d’una nit
If your ethical model defeats you, change the model.
LONDON
When sewers burst, their mire to spew,
Our road to foul swells must succumb;
Flying kiddies will gather without ado,
For as camper and splash in the scum;
Now society cracks under similar laws,
Gushing wit, truth and reason like pee;
Yet as her bog settles across our floors,
Neither scampers nor splashes you see;
This want of passion disgraces our day,
Therefore history implores mean dyou;
To attend! Let’s woo this reckless decay,
And romp through an empire’s lasts pew.
October
There isn’t a name for my situation. Firstly because I decided to
kill myself. And then because of this idea: I don’t have to do it
immediately.
Whoosh – through a little door. It’s a limbo.
I need never answer the phone again, or pay a bill. My credit
score no longer matters. Fears and compulsions don’t matter.
Socks don’t matter. Because I’ll be dead. And who am I to die? A
microwave chef. A writer of pamphlets. A product of our time. A
failed student. A faulty man. A bad poet. An activist in two minds.
A drinker of chocolate milk, and when there’s no chocolate, of
strawberry.
In times geared to the survival of the fittest – not the fittest.
Ah well. I’ve always avoided mirrors but here, naked in a room
with a sink and a mirror, I steal a glance. Whoosh – Weasel is
gone. Suddenly I’m a sphinx, with choir-boy eyes, as luminous
and rude as a decadent portrait in oils.
Because nothing matters anymore.
Rehab isn’t the place for this kind of inspiration, if you can
help it.
By way of rejoicing I pee in the sink – after all, a porcelain
appliance plumbed into a drain – then flush it with tap water,
which I feel shows refinement. Reason and refinement are shown
in my last living hours. Proof that I’m not deranged, that I came
from good people. Or at least, from stories of good people.
Dressing quickly, I don’t bother to wash, it doesn’t matter. I
only pause to stretch at the window and marvel. My depression’s
gone. Whoosh – down a rabbit hole it went. Everything’s whoosh.
That’s the rush of this limbo.1 Of course it only works when the
decision to die is final. Which mine is.
The reason is simple, I’ll tell you my friend: that try as I might,
I never learned to live well. And in our time, not living well means
not living. Nor did I have around me a network of souls to nudge
me right, as today it’s every man for himself. So I foundered
under the weight of modern dreams, which may sound pathetic
except for one thing: it isn’t that I lack forces to spend. I have
inner forces, more than enough. But they never found expres-
sion. They’re unexpressed forces, boiling to a head.
And unexpressed force is more pointless than no force at all.
In the course of my writing it might seem that I recommend
this lethal path to you. Well I do recommend it. Make up your
own mind according to what you see, but in the meantime I
count you a last confidant and cohort. And I say this to you:
everyone regrets leaving a party early, hearing laughter from a
salon behind them. Death must feel that way. But I don’t feel it
at all; because this party’s over. The bottles are empty. Kegs are
spitting foam. Behind us our empire of shopping is in its last
twitching throes. Bye-bye free markets, farewell terms and con-
ditions, ciao bogus laughter, ha ha, whoop, wa-hey. Its last
revellers are the dregs we see at any free event, now vomiting
What is this limbo? A kind of detachment from the object world, a club-mix
of what we fleetingly taste in moments of shock. Already I sense that it has an
envelope, a zone we must stay in to keep it afloat, pushed by fear, pulled by
comforting oblivion. Science would call it Dissociation; but in life we have a
choice between the clinical and the romantic – and Limbo is the romantic
choice. In case you need arguments for choosing romance over science, remem-
ber this: science still doesn’t know why we sleep.
chips and wine. It’s not regret but pride I feel at detecting the state
of play, and getting out in good time.
Adieu then, Modern Day, adieu.2 Another chance to prove our-
selves capable of self-mastery, and hence worthy of freedom, is
gone. Deep down we know it well; for over a decade we’ve merely
reheated the past, glorifying our hundred best moments over and
over like the elderly with snaps of their frolicking days, uncon-
sciously saying goodbye.
Now watch the lights dim in Wonderland.
Whoosh. What a decadence.
A ball plocks between racquets somewhere outside, and to me
it’s a ticking clock, uneven like the real time of nature. I must
vanish from here – quickly, before anyone toys with my mind. I’m
off to live large for an hour or two. Because I’m worth it, ha ha.
As for the behaviour my limbo suggests, just look around. If we’re
to follow our peers, then surely we need no greater morals than
them.
It means Carte Blanche for Gabriel Brockwell.
First things first – I’ll track down the most accomplished prof-
ligate I know: my old chum Nelson Smuts, a man never far from
wine and debauch. With him as my wingman I can turn these last
hours into a perfect miniature of the age I leave behind, nothing
less than a last wanton plunge to oblivion.
Ah decadence. I smile out through the window. The rehabili-
tation facility sits festering like a family secret in countryside
north of London. It has grottoes, shrubberies and empty ponds
Yes, it’s over: profit won the game, but like an infection, killed its host. We were
the host. Quality died out because we relinquished the right to filter our own
choices; profit became the filter of all choice. Truth died out because we no
longer filter true experience; media profit became the filter. The infection found
every human receptor, bound to every protein of existence, sucking them dry
to feed corporate tumours immunised against us by government. Now the host
is a carcass, the market a bacterial enzyme. So adieu!
coated in slime. Inmates – so-called clients – drift around suck-
ing leaf-mould – so-called fresh air – and wearing trousers that
don’t touch their legs but hover emptily over the wrong kinds of
shoe.
My room isn’t locked. The passage outside is ripe with the
mechano-pubic scent of vacuum-cleaning. I plunge through it as
late sun hits the building, a golden blast that lights galaxies of
dust against the foyer’s dark. Whoosh. The Ancients would call
this a good sign. It seems big decisions call signs from the divine
Enthusiasms, perhaps a nod of light or a frown of shadow when
we act momentously. Those ironic and whimsical gods must be
like a fluid all around us. A limbo would surely attract them –
and a limbo before death must be the very spout of their vortex.
Who knows if they favour life over death, if they give signs along
the path of an adventure, or show their lesson at the end.
Come, though – we’ll soon find out.
A long-faced girl slumps behind reception. She watches me,
hoping I won’t approach. Whoosh – I swirl through the light
towards her. My shyness is gone. The secret that I will die makes
it irrelevant, so I go up till her face is in shadow, and ask for
notepaper and pen. We’ll take notes – yes! – while everything’s so
clear. As the girl rummages around, I see check-out forms sitting
behind the counter, and reach for one. She recoils, as if my arm
has a mighty force-field. But then I see she’s a person who
flinches at everything. All movement is a slight surprise to her.
She puts down a notepad, arranges a pen beside it, and stands
well back while I square the check-out form on the counter. With
a flourish I take up the pen:
‘All happiness not derived from intoxicants,’ I write, ‘– is false.’
Her mouth opens slowly: ‘O-kay. I might just get David, or
Rosemary – who have you been seeing – David, or Rosemary?’
Her face seems to grow longer. Cow eyes melt towards the
counter with every word. This is a Salvador Dalí girl, someone to
fold over the branch of a tree. ‘Neither,’ I say, and continue to jot:
‘All self-knowledge, valour and resolve not flowing from intox-
icants – are false.’
‘I’ll page David,’ she reaches for a handset.
I settle into stride, spilling out of the Reason(s) for Discharge
box, into Mentor Comments. ‘The notion does not stand up,’
I write, ‘that those few stragglers in society who feel things
more acutely, who succumb to the wealth of sensitivities that
make them human, traits and passions even celebrated by their
peers – ’
‘David West, David to reception.’
‘ – should, for their failure to harmonise with mediocrity and
automatism, be shut away with passive-aggressive profiteers who
spend their hostilities passing off manipulation and dogma as
some kind of curative therapy.’
‘David to reception please.’
‘The need of this assortment of neo-Californian ano-extrem-
ists to patronise, wield authority, and lord false compassion over
others is a more breathtaking and sinister disturbance of charac-
ter than anything I could aspire to. If one thing convinces me to
stay out of rehab it is this shocking realisation: not that such a
hoax could find allies – but that such allies as it finds should be
so menacingly installed in one place.’
Dalí Girl twitches. She straightens pamphlets. ‘Goodness
knows where David is. Shall we find you a seat in the Quiet
Room? While we – sort things out?’
‘No,’ I say.
She blinks, nodding slowly: ‘The thing is – this isn’t your form
that you’ve written on. Your form is in our files. So we’d have to
write all this out again.’
I stand watching her for a moment. ‘Then why don’t we copy
my few registration details from the form you have, onto this
one?’
‘Well, no, but – this isn’t the form we have on file for you. You
see? Really you’re not supposed to write on the form anyway.’
I level my gaze.
‘Also your form will have comments and – ’
‘But no it won’t. I haven’t attended anything.’
‘Well yes, but it still will, because – well, it’s just that that’s your
form.’
‘Then why don’t you fetch that form?’
‘I’m afraid it’s confidential.’
‘Hm,’ I shift my weight.
‘I’m sorry – it’s just that, for instance, payment details will be
there – ’
‘Would you even charge for half a night’s stay?’
The girl stiffens. ‘Well the course is pre-paid. You see? The
terms and conditions – ’
‘No no – the term and condition in the existential world is that
I arrived during the night, and now I’m leaving.’ I don’t say it
unkindly. I even leave my mouth open, smiling. The tuft of my
chin-beard bobs up like a squirrel.
Dalí Girl squirms.
Ah well, well. Even here we find profit scavenging through the
bones of culture. Even the weak and fallen are leeched at their last
resort. I waft back a step. Dalí Girl shuffles papers while I try to
accept the facts.3 ‘I don’t know where David must be,’ she frowns
down the passage.
‘Well it’s an outrage,’ I calmly pocket the notepad and pen.
‘David West, urgently to reception please.’
My stare passes over a potted palm beside the desk, then over
some letters at the back that spell: ‘Hope.’ I muse how much
Ah, Customer Service. It falls to Dalí Girl to work the gulf between a photo-
graph of a glamour model in a telephone headset, and a collections department
not based at this address. She squirms because despite efforts to erase her
common sense, culture has left a nodule of reason intact. That fragment of
tumour makes her uncomfortable enforcing outrageous terms. Her employer
should have picked up on this.
better a word like ‘Smashing’ would look. Or even a sign from a
Chinese supermarket, ‘Excellent Soiling,’ or ‘Hymen News.’
‘The thing is,’ Dalí inflates with a new idea, ‘you’ll be wanting
your personal effects? Your wallet, phone, and what have you? I’ll
need a senior staff member to sign them out, I can’t just do it.
That’s the thing.’
‘Look: in the space of three minutes your reasons for being
unhelpful have been: that I’ll have to write on a different form; that
I’m not allowed to write on any form; that I’m not allowed to see
the form; and that you need qualified people to open a locker.’
‘That’s the thing,’ she says, happy just to leave the topic. ‘I can
get you some spring water? While we wait for David?’
That’s the Thing. I see in her brow the power to call people who
come more quickly than David, and with medications. Whoosh.
I just take the water, frankly, whose bubbles are hard, crackling
around a scrap of lemon, and mope down the passage to the
Quiet Room. This is a vacuum of spirit overlooking the manor’s
grounds. Just where you’d expect to Wait for David. It smells of
paint and damp. I find it empty, and sit on a pus-coloured sofa
facing the window. Trees outside thrash their bristles at the sky.
I should’ve just walked out. Reception was a mistake.
Next to me a side-table has a chess board, and some magazines
on relaxation and breathing. A table lamp makes their covers
glare. The organism that needs tips on breathing, I muse, should
probably be allowed to die. And I wonder if light would flow as
well off a copy of Bacon Busters or Fisting Wives. We’ll never find
out, that’s why these rural rehabs cause unease. Because a once
voluptuous mansion, where waltzes were danced, where the air
churned with sublime scents, and with the barks of beloved dogs
and children – now a crypt for shame, condescension and beans
– can either have a copy of Fisting Wives, or a brace of corpses
under the kitchen garden.
It won’t have both.
I switch off the lamp and wallow in a violet glow. The chess board sits ready for a game, I inspect the rows of pieces. Pawns
line up to die, knights eye dog-legs, rooks measure straits. With
one imperious swipe I take up the white queen and plough
through both camps, batting the black king to the floor. This is
the sort of attitude we’ll need this evening. Whatever odyssey
we’ve embarked on – and I feel it is an odyssey, albeit a brief one
– ought show the same disregard for life and nature which they
have shown for us. We should pursue our own gain above all else.
Go out as animals. As capitalists!
This moment before death is an empty stage lit waiting. Not that
I’m the first to discover the comforts of suicide.4 Even you must’ve
cradled the idea, lifted a flap of it, in the dark of a certain moment.
Glanced at it, weighed it. Not that you’ve planned it like me. But
you know that amongst combinations of chance already in play
around you, there’s at least one that would make you kill yourself.
I wonder if it’s where we get a sense of being lucky, watching rods
of destiny whirr around our triggers, watching other people’s trig-
gers being hit. Surely this is why news is profitable.
Anyway; my combination was hit.
My mind drifts forward to Nelson Smuts. What a debauch
we’ll have. What a bacchanal. Last I knew he was just back from
Brussels, in a private kitchen somewhere down south. A while
ago, this was. A year ago, perhaps. Ah Smuts.
In the midst of this reflection, the Quiet Room door opens. A
slim young man looks in. He wears a skinny jumper and has a
About suicide: imagine the spirit is a mansion. You’ll guess we don’t use many
rooms. Apart from a few moments in childhood we don’t dance around it in
sunlight. But there’s a traffic of things in and out, and what happens is that
unwanted bulks can gather inside. Gather and gather, menacing us. Unable to
shift them, we hide in ever-smaller spaces. And in our last hole, life offers a
choice: to play out our demise in parallel theatres – psychosis, zealotry, religion,
cancer, addiction – or to bow quietly out. But beware: life doesn’t ask these high
questions when we’re confident and fresh – it waits for hopelessness.
pale, unformed sort of face, like the foetus of a horse. He just
stands looking. Then after a while he points at my shoes:
‘That’s leather,’ he says.
Not sure where he’s going with this, I look back for a few
moments, and after he offers no more clues, raise a finger at him
and say: ‘That’s wool.’
‘Yes but the lamb survived,’ he says.
I turn away, blinking.
After some more silence he says: ‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘No,’ I say.
Another few moments pass. Then he moves away without a
word and shuts the door behind him. Murmurs pass outside.
After they fade, a set of footsteps approaches.
‘Gabriel Brockwell?’ calls a man from the passage. He calls
without effort, in a tone that won’t leave him looking stupid if no
answer comes.
I ignore him. I’ll wait here till all’s quiet, then run. I sense him
looking stupid behind the door, but feel no stress in ignoring
him, or any care about what might happen next. Those tensions
are gone now, because I could kill myself at any moment.
‘Gabriel?’
As he says my name, I write it on the notebook. A title appears:
The Book Of Gabriel.
Then a subtitle:
Anything – for Apes, Dogs & Poets.
I put Anything rather than Everything because it seems all
things arise in the same way. 5 In order to support a mass of new
pseudo-industries, markets led us to believe that every fragment
of life was highly specialised, and therefore in need of pundits,
goods and services to control it; whereas in fact all nature has a
predictable and quite boring character, whether you’re a beetle or
Remember Hobart Loots said: myriad things are comprised in everything; but
there’s only one anything.
a radiographer, escaping a bird or imaging a breast. As for the
creatures in the title, surely they’re ambassadors of our own
nature, motifs of the places our charm and self-loathing are born.
They might even have their own heaven – why not? – if Sweden-
borg says there’s a special paradise for Turks and the Dutch.
With the notebook officially open, a spirit of research prevails
in limbo. Also a valuable façade, worthy of a businessperson, or
even a government; suddenly our mission isn’t wanton abandon
but scientific experiment. A bold and selfless initiative dedicated
to the expansion of human understanding. Our notes should
therefore be clear, they should form a practical guide to true
nature for all who come behind us. You’ll forgive me if their lan-
guage seems formal – but surely to describe a decadence we must
step back from its dialect, pimped as this is to permit outrage.
Because isn’t language the buttress of civilisation? Honed to
describe whims and crimes in all subtlety, leaving no room for
error or escape?6
With this decisive twist I stand off the sofa. The coast seems
clear. My belongings can stay at reception, I’ll just walk out.
Smuts will have money, Smuts will have good food and wine. I
don’t need belongings.
But as I reach the door, new shuffling sounds approach.
A man’s head pokes into the Quiet Room:
‘Ah – there you are.’
To take hold, a decadence relies on communal thoughtlessness, and this is first
brought about by language. Through language the acts and notions which a few
years ago would have caused outrage come to be accepted. Ever more careless
words introduce attitudes into the culture which make reason unfashionable.
Vocabulary shrinks, forcing more concepts to live behind fewer expressions;
and in this process the acceptable and unacceptable come to mix, and are
passed off one for the other. Wherever underminers are at work, in government
or commerce, we find this device. Words are a focussing tool, and decadence
relies on blurring to succeed. I hope this makes sense. Anyway, whatever. Get a
life. LOL J.
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