The Tunnel

by Russell Edson

  The hair and the comb seemed to belong together. Not so much that the hair needed combing, but the reassurance of the comb being drawn through it …

  I stood in the gloom and silence that many forests have in the pages of fiction, combing the thick womanly hair, the mammal-warm hair; even as the evening slowly took the forest into night …

  The Lighted Window

  A lighted window floats through the night like a piece of paper in the wind.

  I want to see into it. I want to climb through into its lighted room.

  As I reach for it it slips through the trees. As I chase it it rolls and tumbles into the air and skitters on through the night …

  Bringing a Dead Man Back into Life

  The dead man is introduced back into life. They take him to a country fair, to a French restaurant, a round of late night parties … He’s beginning to smell.

  They give him a few days off in bed.

  He’s taken to a country fair again; a second engagement at the French restaurant; another round of late night parties … No response … They brush the maggots away … That terrible smell! … No use …

  What’s wrong with you?

  … No use …

  They slap his face. His cheek comes off; bone underneath, jaws and teeth …

  Another round of late night parties … Dropping his fingers … An ear falls off … Loses a foot in a taxi … No use … The smell … Maggots everywhere!

  Another round of late night parties. His head comes off, rolls on the floor. A woman stumbles on it, an eye rolls out. She screams.

  No use … Under his jacket nothing but maggots and ribs … No use …

  The Mountain Climber

  It is only after I reach the top of the mountain that I discover that it is not a mountain, that I have been crawling across the floor of my bedroom all of my life …

  Unless I can quickly decide what to do next I shall go on wasting my life!

  This is the top of a mountain. How could it be else? And I am to be careful not to fall. In fact, I am duty bound to take all precaution. The Universe has entrusted me to myself. And I shall not fail that trust …

  I have been chosen to be me -- OVER HOW MANY OTHERS?!

  The Universe has created me to be the witness of its awareness. I am the witness, and the awareness of that witness!

  Frankly, the Universe’s interests and mine coincide …

  The Universe lifts its head and stares at itself through me …

  I inherit the Universe! I am the Universe!

  I take out my mountain-climbing food, grains and powders, and mix them with water made from mountain snow. And it all blows up into an immense buffet, served by a helium maitre d’ balloon on inflated silver dishes …

  The Song of Dr. Brilliantine

  An employer carried a breakfast tray to the bedroom of his tired servant, Dr. Brilliantine, who, on hearing the knuckles of his employer, sighed, enter.

  His employer came in and said, I do not like you, Dr. Brilliantine, your bedclothes are sour with years of unlaundered sleep.

  Similarly, said Dr. Brilliantine, I do not like you for not liking me; but now you probably dislike me even more for my disliking you, and for which I dislike you even more; we shall end up hating each other.

  Nevertheless, Dr. Brilliantine, I have brought you a lovely breakfast.

  — As a way, no doubt, of getting into Dr. Brilliantine’s bedroom to spy on Dr. Brilliantine, to see how Dr. Brilliantine masticates as he sits in his bed; how the headboard of his bed is stained by Dr. Brilliantine’s brilliantined hair; how his fingers break the toast to dip up the yolks of his eggs; how Dr. Brilliantine’s eyes water with pleasure as he adds bacon and sausage to his overflowing mouth of egg and toast; how he tries to hide his bloated pleasure with a napkin as though wiping his mouth. You are anxious to know the environmental mood of Dr. Brilliantine’s bedroom; you would like to smell Dr. Brilliantine’s shaving brush; you would like to look into his shaving mirror to see if after all these years that the mirror has held Dr. Brilliantine’s face the mirror hasn’t accumulated some secrets about Dr. Brilliantine. You would probably like to look from Dr. Brilliantine’s window so that you might imagine how Dr. Brilliantine feels when he looks from his tiny servants’ quarter window … And how, you think, would Dr. Brilliantine think of the moon rising over that hill? And how is it with Dr. Brilliantine when the rain comes against his window in the time of rain? …

  Enough, enough, cried his employer, it’s getting late, and I have to go down and prepare your lunch …

  The Intuitive Journey

  … I commit myself to domestic dogs. I desert my car. And in the evening I am found eating basic earth prepared by a five-year-old wife.

  Am I a worm? Must I always eat my passage?

  Ah, but the farmers know my worth … What is worth? What are farmers? Why do I say farmers?

  … In the night the naked fat woman is not allowed to be naked; is not allowed to be fat; is not allowed in the night …

  … In the night a woman disguised as a river flows beyond her wildest dreams …

  … A clock looks out of the shivering face of the river. It is time to be away. I start toward the clouds that grow solid in the moonlight … Behind the solid wax of death a clown wearing diamond cloth floats with turtles …

  The car won’t start. The prosthetic forehead made of lead. They say man existed on earth a hundred years ago. I venture two hundred. The car won’t start. The prosthetic forehead made of lead. It is said that today’s breakfast was eaten just this morning. The car won’t start …

  … At the cetacea quarries they are digging whales out of the mountains …

  … I take to carrying pails of water; known as the bringer of water; one who brings water as though water were light; changing the past by changing the future … Columns that walk in the night, the light of searchlights in my pails …

  The Incredible Accident

  He opens his car door and steps into a great throne room with chandeliers and red carpeting.

  There a man wearing knee breeches bows and asks, may I take your head, sir?

  What is this? cries the man. I get into my car to go someplace, but see that I have already arrived at the throne room of some unknown king.

  Would you like a hot bath before tea, says the man in knee breeches, or would you prefer a tonsillectomy?

  But how did this castle get into my car? Or did my car just fit itself around the castle? — One of those incredible accidents one reads about …

  Won’t you come in, sir, says the man wearing knee breeches, the master is waiting to announce you to the further master, who is waiting to announce you to the even further master, who is waiting to announce you to the master beyond even that … It takes several thousand years for the final master to even begin to hear of you … Best to get an early start …

  Yes, of course — but, what an incredible accident!

  VI

  from The Reason Why the Closet-Man Is Never Sad 1977

  All Those Small But Shapely Things

  Aunt Hobbling in her kitchen making a small but shapely breakfast turns and smiles in such a way as to make us aware of the constant space that surrounds her, embracing her, among those things of constant use, things that have become a kind of body music, echoed in the natural sounds of the forest, and in the faint thunders of the distant sky.

  She thinks of the finery scarred; rough seductions, as though one could collect a wealth made ugly by breaking through locked doors to those small but shapely interiors … One’s feelings numbed now by that inner awareness of all the outward shows of all those small but shapely mercies …

  Yet, in the meantime, the dew, like small glass beads, aligns itself with the sun to make those small but shapely pieces in the grass of what we take to be the purity of light …

  She floats, suddenly enlightened, like a Kleenex in the wind …

  Meanwhile, we return once more to the kitchen of Aunt Hobbling
, where she turns once more, smiling. And we see her among her things, as part of a collage in which the adhesive withers, so that the piece flutters, or shall we say, shivers, in those small but shapely winds that enter open windows with mercurial desire …

  The Autopsy

  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 found any blood clots?

  Blood clots?!

  For my necklace …

  The Bridge

  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 shall be crossing it shortly. I don’t know if I shall find hills and valleys made of flesh on the other side, or simply constant night, villages of sleep. The ape is scolding me for not teaching him better. I am letting him wear my pith helmet for consolation. The bridge looks like one of those skeletal reconstructions of a huge dinosaur one sees in a museum. The ape is looking at the stump of his wrist and scolding me again. I offer him another banana and he gets very furious, as though I’d insulted him. Tomorrow we cross the bridge. I’ll write to you from the other side if I can; if not, look for a sign …

  The Ceremony

  With ceremonial regret I lowered a seed into the earth as though I laid it to its final rest …

  If this seed live again then so shall I.

  Which, of course, is sheer nonsense placed in the service of a tongue too long in the damp sleep of its mouth.

  From a cloud an ancestor looked out at me. And I thought surely a moment had been reached. And I wasn’t wrong, a moment had been reached — and then another — minutes, hours — yes, entire time, before and after me, proceeding in orderly fashion, through me and through the trees like sunlight or a fine rain when the air is so lovely …

  Had I suddenly become filled with God? Or was it a house falling in upon itself in the distance with a small sigh of dusty desperation? A cloud musty with the smell of old coats … The sound of distant calliopes! The trumpeting of elephants!

  The Cliff

  … Standing on a cliff overlooking the sea, sea gulls like scraps of paper blowing over the rocks below. A steady northeast wind, at first refreshing, then chilling; storm coming… .

  An old fisherman wearing rubber boots makes his way along the cliff. He is carrying something on his back; it is supported by a line over his shoulder which he clutches in his hands. It seems to be a large fish.

  On closer inspection it turns out to be an old woman, the line coming out of her open mouth. I imagine a fishhook stuck in her throat.

  The old fisherman stops and lets the old woman slide off his back to the ground. Storm coming, he says. He nods in the direction of the old woman on the ground, my wife.

  Is she dead? I say, trying to sound concerned.

  Oh no, just resting; we always take our walk along the cliffs.

  He puts his fingers in her mouth and removes the hook from her throat. There ya be, he sighs.

  His wife sits up and yawns; she says, looks like a storm coming.

  The old fisherman puts the hook in his mouth and swallows it. And now the old woman picks up the line and begins dragging the old man away. His eyes are shut.

  I see the old woman struggling with the line over her shoulder, dragging what seems to be a large fish, as she makes her way through a fine rain just beginning to fall.

  The Closet

  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.

  The Coincidental Association

  Dr. Glowingly turned to Dr. Glisteningly and said, why are you copying everything I do?

  But why are you copying everything I do? replied Dr. Glisteningly.

  We can’t both be copying, cried Dr. Glowingly.

  But I deny it! screamed Dr. Glisteningly.

  One of us is copying the other, said Dr. Glowingly.

  Admittedly, conceded Dr. Glisteningly, the piling up of coincidence is far too great; either we are both being controlled by a third party, which I rather disbelieve, or one of us is being cued by the other.

  I believe you are unconsciously imitating me — no more of it! Dr. Glisteningly; I will not have my spontaneity blurred by your constant echo, said Dr. Glowingly.

  Why, look at you, wearing the same deerstalker cap as I wear, the same gray spats, cried Dr. Glisteningly.

  Well, it’s no secret that I admire your taste — why shouldn’t I, isn’t it in direct imitation of mine? said Dr. Glowingly.

  Perhaps we will not prove who is the copycat, but I do think some effort ought to be made to interrupt this mirror effect of our appearances, particularly the calabash pipes, said Dr. Glisteningly.

  I have the corrective, said Dr. Glowingly as he pulled a derringer out of his breast pocket … Even of course as Dr. Glisteningly was also pulling a derringer out of his breast pocket …

  The Cottage in the Wood

  He has built himself a cottage in a wood, near where the insect rubs its wings in song.

  Yet, without measure, or a proper sense of scale, he has made the cottage too small. He realizes this when only his hand will fit through the door.

  He tries the stairs to the second floor with his fingers, but his arm wedges in the entrance.

  He wonders how he shall cook his dinner. He might get his fingers through the kitchen windows, but even so, the stove’s too tiny to cook enough food; the pots are like thimbles and bottle caps.

  He must also lie unsheltered in the night even though a tiny bed, with its covers turned down, waits for him in the cottage.

  He curls himself around the cottage, listening to the insect that rubs its wings in song …

  The Damaged Ape

  A little piece of the ape’s nostril had fallen off; and then we noticed one of its ears was chipped. On closer examination we saw that one of its fingernails was missing.

  By this time, of course, we had grown to love the ape, but still we wondered if it shouldn’t be sent back for an undamaged one.

  The guarantee slip was still tied to one of its ears: This ape is guaranteed in perfect working order on day of purchase.

  But then we noticed something else written on the slip: Floor model, demonstration ape, reduced for quick sale.

  Ah, so we did get a bargain without even knowing it.

  The ape shyly smiles and presents its cheek for a kiss …

  But later on in the evening a large hole develops in the ape’s stomach from what had seemed earlier only a tiny tear. And all evening we watched the ape’s insides slowly coming out all over the rug …

  Erasing Amyloo

  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? …

  I’ll erase her closet, her dresser — shut up about Amyloo! Bring your head over here and I’ll erase Amyloo out of it.

  The husband rubs his eraser on his wife’s forehead, and as she begins to forget she says, hummm, I wonder whatever happened to Amyloo? …

  Never heard of her, says her husband.

  And you, she says, who are you? You’re not Amyloo, are you? I don’t remember your being Amyloo. Are you my Amyloo, whom I don’t remember anymore? …

  Of course not, Amyloo was a girl. Do I look like a girl?

  … I don’t know, I don’t know wh
at anything looks like anymore …

  The Fight in the Meadow

  The curtains part: it is a summer’s day. There a cow on a grassy slope watches as a bull charges an old aeroplane in a meadow. The bull is punching holes with its horns in the aeroplane’s fabric …

  Suddenly the aeroplane’s engine ignites; the meadow is dark with blue smoke …

  The aeroplane shifts round and faces the charging bull.

  As the bull comes in the propeller takes off the end of its muzzle. The bloody nostrils, a ring through them, are flung to the grass with a shattered blossom of teeth.

  The bull, blood oozing from the stump of its face, backs off, and charges again. This time the propeller catches the bull behind its lower jaw and flings the head into a tree.

  The headless bull backs off once more, and then charges down again. The propeller beating at the headless bull, cutting the body away in a great halo of blood, until only the back legs are standing. These run wildly away through the meadow in figure eights and zigzags, until at last they find the aeroplane again. And as they come running down the propeller whacks them apart.

  The legs, one with the tail still attached to it, the other somehow retaining both rectum and testicles, scamper off in opposite directions.