The Waiter

Book 0: Singularity

by Kwan Ann Tan

Genres: Contemporary Fantasy; Literary Fiction; Science Fiction

Synopsis

An interactive fiction debut where readers enter a world as an unnamed worker navigating a society on the brink of collapse.

In a future London, the rich hoard wealth and Waiters do the menial jobs no one else has time for. The city is being swallowed into the ground by “maws,” gaping holes that appear and disappear without explanation—no one knows how or why they form, only that they seem to manifest wherever will cause the most chaos. Occasionally, a maw will leave behind a person: someone who wakes up without memories or any understanding of how they came to be swallowed up by the darkness.

You are one of them. As an unnamed Waiter, you must select your jobs carefully or risk losing work credits, while also trying to keep your humanity intact. Meanwhile, a desire to understand yourself creeps in: Who were you before this? Who might you become?

A bold and imaginative debut that allows readers to chart their own adventure, this book offers a world of possibilities, with eleven different endings and countless journeys toward them. A unique, voice-driven literary experience, The Waiter prompts readers to wrestle with agency and desire in a world that feels like it’s coming apart at the seams.

Release date: November 3, 2026

Publisher: Union Square & Co.

Print pages: 144

Sample

The train scrapes past a patch of electricity and the carriage holds its breath. A great shuddering comes from the tunnel, sparking and twitching. You stare out of the window. The darkness yawns, and you flinch. This isn’t the first time you’ve encountered a maw while on the Tube, but you’ll probably never get used to it.

The feeling is like a finger dragging down your spine. You scrunch yourself into a ball, putting your feet up on the seat and burying your face in your knees. The passenger opposite you is completely oblivious to what’s behind them, their face lit up by their phone.

The Company says they found you by the entrance of one of these maws, these gaping holes that appear and disappear around London and many other parts of the world. No one knows how or why they form, but they seem to manifest wherever will cause the most chaos, swallowing whatever lies in their path—roads, buildings, people.

Above ground, the maws look like gigantic mouths, gasping for air; down here, they’re large sacs dropped into the earth, and when the Tube grazes the delicate membrane of one of these sacs, it shudders. You squeeze your eyes even more tightly shut.

You can’t remember first hearing about the maws, because you don’t remember anything about yourself. When you were found, you were naked except for your hair, which was so long it was wrapped around your body like a cocoon and had to be shaved off.

The Company offered to try and help you recover your memories, but the process wouldn’t be cheap. “Don’t worry about all that now,” the Company representative said. They arrived shortly after you woke up, and took you through a long list of terms of employment. You’d be able to unlock some benefits once you’d completed enough jobs. One year on, you haven’t even made enough money to move out of Company accommodation, let alone save for memory retrieval. You often wonder what kind of life you previously led. Is anyone missing you? Have you always been alone? Your job with the Company at least allows you to slip into other people’s lives and see if anything feels familiar.

The lights in the carriage flicker off. There’s a chorus of gasps, then everyone holds their breath. Maw issues are unheard of underground, but there’s a first time for everything. You feel yourself float, gravitating towards the maw. At times like this, the Company therapist recommends that you list three things about yourself, to remind yourself of who you are. You tap your fingers together: thumb to index, thumb to middle, ring, and littlest.

One. You are wearing shoes from the Company donation box. They are slightly loose, but you’ve tied the laces as tightly as they will go, and you can feel your pulse throbbing in them if you concentrate hard enough. You wear the regulation uniform, but the Company doesn’t stipulate what shoes you must wear—only that they allow you to walk fast and stand for a long time.

Two. You got a haircut last week at the Company hairdresser’s. It’s a short bob that tickles your chin, one of the three styles offered at your current rank. Although the other two options had more flair, they didn’t feel like you. This one does.

Three. You are a Waiter. That’s what the Company calls its employees. You can be hired by the hour to wait. This includes queueing for the latest releases of a game, gadget, or other in-demand object; waiting outside someone’s house to receive a delivery; watching a load at the launderette; and taking luggage to hotels for tourists, freeing up their time for meetings or sightseeing. Case in point: the suitcase currently between your legs.

Just one suitcase today, thank goodness, although it is quite large. Some people like to get their money’s worth, weighing you down like a pack mule. “You can handle it, right?” some say, when you meet for the handover.

The train moves past the maw, and you breathe out at last. The lights come back on one by one, accordioning through the carriage. Your fellow passengers look faintly embarrassed to be able to see each other again, as if the dark had allowed them the privacy to let their masks slip, and now they aren’t going to be swallowed they feel ashamed of having been afraid in the first place. You accidentally make eye contact with the person across from you, and they quickly look away. What do you do?

» Look down at the luggage. (here)

» Look up at the adverts. (here)

The notebook falls open to a shopping list, of mostly black-market ingredients:

At the bottom of the page is a phone number, in a slanted, rushed hand.

The next page is a diary entry, about one of the suitcase owner’s trips. Your eyes skate across the page before you focus up and try to take in the handwriting.

Valencia, June

Travelled to Xativa, visited the Real Monasterio de Santa Clara.

Nothing much remains. I tried to imagine how the convent must have been bustling with women’s work. Busy hands, quiet prayer. It’s rebuilt now, but not the same. Only a hollow pastiche of spirituality remains.

At dawn, the sun lights up the doorway. It’s so quiet you can almost hear the gulls by the sea, an hour away by car.

The maw is alive, pulsing. It shifts every twelve hours, stirring to absorb a little more of its surroundings. Soon it will engulf the monastery, all that history reborn into whatever maws make of their meals.

You are intrigued by their description of the maws. Everyone else seems to discuss them in one of two ways: as inconveniences or as heralds of grief. Everyone has lost someone to a maw. Everyone except you, as far as you know.

You have grown used to performing sympathy when someone describes how their house or loved ones were swallowed into the Earth. The suitcase owner simply describes them as a fact of life, as any other feature of the Earth’s crust. The passing mention of sun and sea makes you want to cry. You are starved of the outdoors, and you long to be busy and not merely in transit.

You skip around the pages to find out more about the suitcase owner. They seem be researching maws, and there are nearly twent. . .