The Death Of A Fly by Russell Edson
The Death Of A Fly by Russell Edson There was once a man who disguised himself as a housefly and went about the neighborhood depositing flyspecks. Well, he has to do something hasn’t he? said someone to someone else. Of course, said someone else back to someone. Then what’s all the fuss? said someone to […]
The Changeling by Russell Edson
The Changeling by Russell Edson A man had a son who was an anvil. And then sometimes he was an automobile tire. I do wish you would sit still, said the father. Sometimes his son was a rock. I realize that you have quite lost boundary, where no excess seems excessive, nor to where poverty […]
The Breast by Russell Edson
The Breast by Russell Edson One night a woman’s breast came to a man’s room and began to talk about her twin sister. Her twin sister this and her twin sister that. Finally the man said, but what about you, dear breast? And so the breast spent the rest of the night talking about herself. […]
The Autopsy by Russell Edson
The Autopsy by Russell Edson In a back room a man is performing an autopsy on an old raincoat. His wife appears in the doorway with a candle and asks, how does it go? Not now, not now, I’m just getting to the lining, he murmurs with impatience. I just wanted to know if you […]
The Alfresco Moment by Russell Edson
The Alfresco Moment by Russell Edson A butler asks, will Madam be having her morning coffee alfresco? If you would be so good as to lift me out of my bed to the veranda I would be more than willing to imbibe coffee alfresco. Shall I ask the Master to join you for coffee alfresco, […]
A Performance At Hog Theater by Russell Edson
A Performance At Hog Theater by Russell Edson There was once a hog theater where hogs performed as men, had men been hogs. One hog said, I will be a hog in a field which has found a mouse which is being eaten by the same hog which is in the field and which has […]
Erasing Amyloo by Russell Edson
Erasing Amyloo by Russell Edson A father with a huge eraser erases his daughter. When he finishes there’s only a red smudge on the wall. His wife says, where is Amyloo? She’s a mistake, I erased her. What about all her lovely things? asks his wife. I’ll erase them too. All her pretty clothes? . […]
On The Eating Of Mice by Russell Edson
On The Eating Of Mice by Russell Edson A woman prepared a mouse for her husband’s dinner, roasting it with a blueberry in its mouth. At table he uses a dentist’s pick and a surgeon’s scalpel, bending over the tiny roastling with a jeweler’s loupe . . . Twenty years of this: curried mouse, garlic […]
The Closet by Russell Edson
The Closet by Russell Edson Here I am with my mother, hanging under the molt of years, in a garden of umbrellas and rubber boots, together always in the vague perfume of her coat. See how the fedoras along the shelf are the several skulls of my father, in this catacomb of my family. ————— […]
Soup Song by Russell Edson
Soup Song by Russell Edson How I make my soup: I draw water from a tap . . . I am not an artist. And the water is not so much drawn as allowed to fall, and to capture itself in a pot. Perhaps not so much captured, as allowed to gather itself from its […]
The Bridge by Russell Edson
The Bridge by Russell Edson In his travels he comes to a bridge made entirely of bones. Before crossing he writes a letter to his mother: Dear mother, guess what? the ape accidentally bit off one of his hands while eating a banana. Just now I am at the foot of a bone bridge. I […]
Mr. Brain by Russell Edson
Mr. Brain by Russell Edson Mr Brain was a hermit dwarf who liked to eat shellfish off the moon. He liked to go into a tree then because there is a little height to see a little further, which may reveal now the stone, a pebble–it is a twig, it is nothing under the moon […]
One Lonely Afternoon by Russell Edson
One Lonely Afternoon by Russell Edson Since the fern can’t go to the sink for a drink of water, I graciously submit myself to the task, bringing two glasses from the sink. And so we sit, the fern and I, sipping water together. Of course I’m more complex than a fern, full of deep thoughts […]
Ape And Coffee by Russell Edson
Ape And Coffee by Russell Edson Some coffee had gotten on a man’s ape. The man said, animal did you get on my coffee? No no, whistled the ape, the coffee got on me. You’re sure you didn’t spill on my coffee? said the man. Do I look like a liquid? peeped the ape. Well […]
Accidents by Russell Edson
Accidents by Russell Edson The barber has accidentally taken off an ear. It lies like something newborn on the floor in a nest of hair. Oops, says the barber, but it musn’t’ve been a very good ear, it came off with very little complaint. It wasn’t, says the customer, it was always overly waxed. I […]
A Journey Through The Moonlight by Russell Edson
A Journey Through The Moonlight by Russell Edson In sleep when an old man’s body is no longer aware of his boundaries, and lies flattened by gravity like a mere of wax in its bed . . . It drips down to the floor and moves there like a tear down a cheek . . […]
Antimatter by Russell Edson
Antimatter by Russell Edson On the other side of a mirror there’s an inverse world, where the insane go sane; where bones climb out of the earth and recede to the first slime of love. And in the evening the sun is just rising. Lovers cry because they are a day younger, and soon childhood […]
A Stone Is Nobody’s by Russell Edson
A Stone Is Nobody’s by Russell Edson A man ambushed a stone. Caught it. Made it a prisoner. Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the rest of his life. His mother asked why. He said, because it’s held captive, because it is captured. Look, the stone is asleep, she […]
Counting Sheep by Russell Edson
Counting Sheep by Russell Edson A scientist has a test tube full of sheep. He wonders if he should try to shrink a pasture for them. They are like grains of rice. He wonders if it is possible to shrink something out of existence. He wonders if the sheep are aware of their tininess, if […]
Sleep by Russell Edson
Sleep by Russell Edson There was a man who didn’t know how to sleep; nodding off every night into a drab, unprofessional sleep. Sleep that he’d grown so tired of sleeping. He tried reading The Manual of Sleep, but it just put him to sleep. That same old sleep that he had grown so tired […]
Paying The Captain by Russell Edson
Paying The Captain by Russell Edson We get on a boat, never mind if it sinks, we pay the captain by throwing him overboard. And when he gets back onboard we say, captain, please don’t be angry. And he forgives us this time. And so we throw him overboard again just to make sure we […]
Grass by Russell Edson
Grass by Russell Edson The living room is overgrown with grass. It has come up around the furniture. It stretches through the dining room, past the swinging door into the kitchen. It extends for miles and miles into the walls . . . There’s treasure in grass, things dropped or put there; a stick of […]
Angels by Russell Edson
Angels by Russell Edson They have little use. They are best as objects of torment. No government cares what you do with them. Like birds, and yet so human . . . They mate by briefly looking at the other. Their eggs are like white jellybeans. Sometimes they have been said to inspire a man […]
Ape by Russell Edson
Ape by Russell Edson You haven’t finished your ape, said mother to father, who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers. I’ve had enough monkey, cried father. You didn’t eat the hands, and I went to all the trouble to make onion rings for its fingers, said mother. I’ll just nibble on its forehead, […]
Hands by Russell Edson
Hands by Russell Edson There was a road that leads him to go to find a certain time where he sits. Smokes quietly in the evening by the four legged table wagging its (well why not) tail, friendly chap. Hears footsteps, looks to find his own feet gone. The road absorbs everything with rumors of […]
The Fall by Russell Edson
The Fall by Russell Edson There was a man who found two leaves and came indoors holding them out saying to his parents that he was a tree. To which they said then go into the yard and do not grow in the living room as your roots may ruin the carpet. He said I […]
The Family Monkey by Russell Edson
The Family Monkey by Russell Edson We bought an electric monkey, experimenting rather recklessly with funds carefully gathered since grandfather’s time for the purchase of a steam monkey. We had either, by this time, the choice of an electric or gas monkey. The steam monkey is no longer being made, said the monkey merchant. But […]
Elephant Dormitory by Russell Edson
Elephant Dormitory by Russell Edson An elephant went to bed and pulled a crazy quilt up under its tusks. But just as the great gray head began filling with the gray wrinkles of sleep it was awakened by the thud of its tail falling out of bed. Would you get my tail? said the elephant […]
Conjugal by Russell Edson
Conjugal by Russell Edson A man is bending his wife. He is bending her around something that she has bent herself around. She is around it, bent as he has bent her. He is convincing her. It is all so private. He is bending her around the bedpost. No, he is bending her around the […]
A Historical Breakfast by Russell Edson
A Historical Breakfast by Russell Edson A man is bringing a cup of coffee to his face, tilting it to his mouth. It’s historical, he thinks. He scratches his head: another historical event. He really ought to rest, he’s making an awful lot of history this morning. Oh my, now he’s buttering toast, another piece […]