Tag: Russell Edson

“A Man Who Writes”

by

Russell Edson

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A man had written head on his forehead, and hand on each hand, and foot on each foot.

His father said, stop stop stop, because the redundancy is like having two sons, which is two sons too many, as in the first instance which is one son too many.

The man said, may I write father on father?

Yes, said father, because one father is tired of bearing it all alone.

Mother said, I’m leaving if all these people come to dinner.

But the man wrote dinner all over the dinner.

When dinner was over father said to his son, will you write belch on my belch?

The man said, I will write God bless everyone on God.

“Ape”

by

Russell Edson

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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, and then I’ve had enough, said father.

I stuffed its nose with garlic, just like you like it, said mother.

Why don’t you have the butcher cut these apes up? You lay the whole thing on the table every night; the same fractured skull, the same singed fur; like someone who died horribly. These aren’t dinners, these are postmortem dissections.

Try a piece of its gum, I’ve stuffed its mouth with bread, said mother.

Ugh, it looks like a mouth full of vomit. How can I bite into its cheek with bread spilling out of its mouth? cried father.

Break one of the ears off, they’re so crispy, said mother.

I wish to hell you’d put underpants on these apes; even a jockstrap, screamed father.

Father, how dare you insinuate that I see the ape as anything more than simple meat, screamed mother.

Well, what’s with this ribbon tied in a bow on its privates? screamed father.

Are you saying that I am in love with this vicious creature? That I would submit my female opening to this brute? That after we had love on the kitchen floor I would put him in the oven, after breaking his head with a frying pan; and then serve him to my husband, that my husband might eat the evidence of my infidelity … ?

I’m just saying that I’m damn sick of ape every night, cried father.

“The Definition”

by

Russell Edson

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He that puts suicide into his left ear pretends it is wax. His mother says, but it’s a bullet which you have shot yourself with.

Is that how I died? he said.

That’s when the funeral began, it was like a flower festival; your father asked me to marry him, and with much declining as to appear of greater value I agreed. Of the two of us, your father and I, so overlapping we blurred into three. I said, how is this? Your father said, this is this. And this was you. But for a time we could not tell who any of us were. Your father said, who am I? And I said, am I you? And he said, if you are me then I am the small one there and the small one is you. And after much declining I agreed to be anyone; I said, someone is passing the house, shall I be someone passing the house? … and so forth. Until we discovered that we had shadows; so that in the morning we would assemble and let the sun stencil us on the wall: The largest of the three we allowed would be the father, the next largest, the mother, and the smallest, the third one, which you were called as we did not know who you were …

And that you might be a wood god or the spirit of the house … So that we allowed
you to define yourself.

But of my suicide? …

But you see that is another definition of the first turning which was turned when I wasn’t looking …

And of my death? …

As a festival of flowers … declining as to appear of greater value …