the last book I ever read (Olga Ravn's The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century, excerpt eight)

from The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken:

STATEMENT 057

One of the objects, I’d say it was about the size of a small dog, is shiny like a maggot from a different world, but also like a talisman I used to wear on a chain around my neck when I was a child and would put in my mouth and suck. Whenever I see it there in the room I feel the same urge to put it in my mouth, though it’s far too big for me to be able to do so. Still, I want to be in contact with it through my mouth, to understand it with my mouth. Loving it like loving a body part detached from the body. Not mutilated, just a part, detached and alive, an adornment. In me, the object is at once as small as the egg of a titmouse and as big as the room, or bigger, like a museum building or a monument. A secure and pleasant vessel, carrying inside a disaster retold.