The Tunnel

by Russell Edson

  That person passing in the neighborhood says, that dog is making for that 2nd story window … This is a nice neighborhood, that dog is wrong …

  If the dog gets his paws on the sill of the window, which is attached to the same room where the woman is opening her hatchet box, she may chop at his paws with that same hatchet. She might want to chop at something; it is, after all, getting close to chopping time …

  Something is dreadful, I feel a sense of dread, says that same person passing in the neighborhood, it’s that dog that’s not right, not that way …

  In the room attached to the window that the dog has been making for, the woman is beginning to see two white paws on the sill of that same window, which is attached to the same room where that same woman is beginning to see two white paws on the sill of that same window, which looks out over the neighborhood.

  She says, it’s wrong … Something … The windowsill … Something … The windowsill …

  She wants her hatchet. She thinks she’s going to need it now …

  The person passing in the neighborhood says, something may happen … That dog … I feel a sense of dread …

  The woman goes to the hatchet in its box. She wants it. But it’s gone bad. It’s soft and nasty. It smells dead. She wants to get it out of its box (that same cedar box where she keeps it). But it bends and runs through her fingers …

  Now the dog is coming down, crouched low to the wall, backwards; leaving a wet streak with its tongue down the side of the house.

  And that same person passing in the neighborhood says, that dog is wrong … I don’t like to see a dog get like that …

  The Howling

  A large woman has killed her parakeet with an ax; went suddenly berserk; blood all over the house, splashed all over the neighborhood, on the roads leading out of town. It is said that parakeet blood was found in several neighboring towns; that it was even splashed several states away!

  She was known to love birds; would put food out in the winter for them.

  Her neighbors are curious about her, this large woman who lived alone with a parakeet.

  She is splattered with blood. She doesn’t seem to see all the people who have gathered to watch her being taken out of her house.

  The ax comes out in a bloody burlap bag. The body of the parakeet follows on a rubber stretcher.

  The large woman does not seem to see the people who have gathered to watch the authorities lead her out of her house; even as the ax comes out in a blood-soaked burlap bag; the body of the parakeet on a rubber stretcher.

  Thin sheets of blood run from the upstairs windows down the walls of the house.

  Every so often a tide of blood pours down the stairs from the 2nd floor, and gushes through the front door over the porch, down the front walk into the street.

  Someone says the cellar is waist-deep in blood.

  The large woman, her arms being held, is led out of her house, down the steps of her front porch into the front yard of her house; people have gathered to watch, even as the ax is carried out in a bloody sack of burlap; two men carrying the parakeet out on a rubber stretcher …

  Suddenly the large woman begins to howl with a sound deep in herself; it grows loud and awful.

  The people stand away. The authorities let go of her arms and begin to back away.

  Blood oozes up out of the grass, and drops of blood roll down the telephone poles in long red strokes …

  Mr. & Mrs. Duck Dinner

  An old woman with a duck under her arm is let into a house and asked, whom shall I say is calling?

  Mr. and Mrs. Duck Dinner.

  If you don’t mind my asking, which is which?

  Pointing to the duck the old woman says, this here’s my husband.

  A little time passes and the butler reappears, yes, come right in, you’re expected, the kitchen’s just this way.

  In the kitchen there’s a huge stove. The butler says, I’m sorry, we don’t have a pot big enough for you; so we’re using an old cast-iron bathtub. I hope you don’t mind? We have a regular duck pot for your husband.

  No no, this is fine, I’ll make pretend I’m having a bath. — Oh, by the way, do you have enough duck sauce? says the old woman.

  Yes, plenty, and the cook’s made up a nice stuffing, too.

  My husband’ll need plucking; I can undress myself, says the old woman.

  Fine, that’ll be a great help; we’ll have the kitchen girl defeather your husband. — By the way, what would you suggest with duck? asks the butler.

  Wild rice, but not too wild, we wouldn’t want any trouble in the dining room; and perhaps asparagus spears … But make sure they’re not too sharp, they can be quite dangerous; best to dull them on a grinding wheel before serving …

  Very good, Madam. — By the way, do you think that having the kitchen girl defeather your husband might be a little awkward, if you know what I mean? She is rather pretty; wouldn’t want to start any difficulties between you and your husband, says the butler.

  No worry, says the old woman, we’re professional duck dinners; if we started fooling around with the kitchen help we’d soon be out of business. — If you don’t mind I’d like to get into the oven as soon as possible. I’m not as young as I used to be, not that I’m that old, but it does take me a little longer these days …

  The Hemorrhoid Epidemic

  They kill the man’s monkey because they think it has infected the neighborhood with hemorrhoids.

  The man thinks the monkey too good to waste, even if there is only enough monkey to make one boot.

  And so he has one boot made, and calls this his monkey-boot.

  The boot reminds him of his monkey; the fur on it is exactly like the fur on his monkey.

  But, why not, he thinks, is it not made from the same monkey whose fur is like the fur on his boot?

  But since there is only one boot he decides he’ll either have to have one of his legs amputated or have the boot made into a hat.

  He decides to have the boot made into a hat because he has only one head and will not have to have one of his heads amputated.

  But when the boot has been made into a hat he doesn’t know whether to call it his boot-hat or his monkey-hat.

  The hat reminds him of a boot he once had.

  But why shouldn’t it, he thinks, was it not once a boot?

  But that boot reminds him of a monkey he once had.

  Yet, why should it not, he thinks, was it not made from the same monkey that it reminds him of?

  He is puzzled.

  Meanwhile, the hemorrhoid epidemic continues to spread …

  The Gentlemen in the Meadow

  Some gentlemen are floating in the meadow over the yellow grass. They seem to hover by those wonderful blue little flowers that grow there by those rocks.

  Perhaps they have floated up from that nearby graveyard?

  They drift a little when the wind blows.

  Butterflies flutter through them …

  The Marionettes of Distant Masters

  A pianist dreams that he’s hired by a wrecking company to ruin a piano with his fingers …

  On the day of the piano wrecking concert, as he’s dressing, he notices a butterfly annoying a flower in his window box. He wonders if the police should be called. Then he thinks maybe the butterfly is just a marionette being manipulated by its master from the window above.

  Suddenly everything is beautiful. He begins to cry.

  Then another butterfly begins to annoy the first butterfly. He again wonders if he shouldn’t call the police.

  But, perhaps they are marionette-butterflies? He thinks they are, belonging to rival masters seeing whose butterfly can annoy the other’s the most.

  And this is happening in his window box. The Cosmic Plan: Distant Masters manipulating minor Masters who, in turn, are manipulating tiny butterfly-Masters who, in turn, are manipulating him … A universe webbed with strings!

  Suddenly it is all so beautiful; the light is strange �
�� Something about the light! He begins to cry …

  The Dog

  A dog hangs in a kitchen, his back stuck to the ceiling. An old woman tries to work him loose with the handle of her broom.

  The dog struggles, but the more he struggles the deeper he sinks into the ceiling. He growls and snaps. He implores and whines, swallowing and chewing; his tongue curling in and out of his mouth, as though he lapped water …

  Finally only the dark little dots of his footpads can be seen. They hear him whining inside the ceiling …

  The dog … ? says the old woman.

  The dog is ruined, says her husband.

  The dog … ? says the old woman.

  It’s the ceiling, says her husband.

  The dog … ? says the old woman.

  It ate the dog, the ceiling ate the dog, says her husband.

  The dog … ? says the old woman.

  … The dog, says the old man.

  The Old Woman’s Breakfast

  The old woman at breakfast, she is so weary she hardly tells herself from the porridge she eats.

  She can’t tell if she spoons the porridge into herself, or herself into the porridge …

  The walls melt, and her mind seems to float all over the room like a puff of dust slapped out of a pillow.

  She falls into the porridge, she becomes part of it.

  She is a porridge of melting walls; her bones no longer different than her flesh, her eyes no longer different than her nostrils.

  … She begins to spill over the edge of the table …

  The Pilot

  Up in a dirty window in a dark room is a star which an old man can see. He looks at it. He can see it. It is the star of the room; an electrical freckle that has fallen out of his head and gotten stuck in the dirt on the window.

  He thinks he can steer by that star. He thinks he can use the back of a chair as a ship’s wheel to pilot this room through the night.

  He says to himself, brave Captain, are you afraid?

  Yes, I am afraid; I am not so brave.

  Be brave, my Captain.

  And all night the old man steers his room through the dark …

  Grass

  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 rust that was once a penknife, a grave marker … All hidden in the grass at the scalp of the meadow …

  In a cellar under the grass an old man sits in a rocking chair, rocking to and fro. In his arms he holds an infant, the infant body of himself. And he rocks to and fro under the grass in the dark …

  Hands

  An old woman buys an ape’s hand for supper. It will not be still, it keeps clenching and unclenching its fist. It might want to pinch her too, she thinks.

  Be still, you silly thing, while I clean your fingernails. She wants to clean it up and pluck the fur off it to make it ready for the pot.

  She doesn’t know whether she’ll fry it or boil it, or just simply hurt it, stick it with a fork or a hat pin. She’ll hurt it if it doesn’t be still!

  Be still, you silly thing!

  Now the ape’s hand is pointing with its forefinger to the cupboard.

  The cupboard, huh?

  And she is trying to see the angle of the forefinger to see where it points. It points high, something at the top of the cupboard.

  What’s there? She starts to climb the cupboard, using the shelves as a ladder.

  What’s up here so grand to be pointed at?

  The ape’s hand has become a fist and is pounding the table.

  I’m looking for it! Stop pounding the table, you silly thing!

  The ape’s fist continues to pound; the room shakes with it.

  Please, please, I’ll fall, cries the old woman.

  At the top of the cupboard she finds an old dried-out hand covered with dust.

  Is this what you want?

  The ape’s hand on the table opens and closes, as if it would grasp what she has found; and then pounds the table as if to say hurry, hurry, bring it down to me!

  All right, all right, I’m coming.

  Finally she puts the dried-out hand into the ape’s hand. The ape’s hand lays the dried-out hand on its back, and strokes the insides of the fingers and palm, until the hand begins to be alive. Then the two hands close into a clasped set, the short blunt thumbs twirling at each other …

  The old woman sits watching the hands, with their short blunt thumbs twirling, late into the night, until she falls asleep in her chair …

  Dr. Nigel Bruce Watson Counting

  Dr. Nigel Bruce Watson sat before a long piece of sunlight on the floor described by a French door as a series of golden oblongs, three wide and six down.

  As he worked his ear for wax he discovered that his ear was loose. He absentmindedly tried to press it back, but it was hanging from his head.

  It finally dropped on his shoulder. He tried pasting it back with marmalade which he had been eating for breakfast.

  Now he had marmalade all over the side of his head; but the ear refused to stay in place. He put the ear in a cigarette box.

  He touched his other ear, and it was also loose.

  Better not fool with it, he thought.

  But he absentmindedly touched it again, and it fell on his shoulder.

  He tried pasting it back with marmalade. But this ear, like the first, refused to adhere.

  He put the second ear with the first in the cigarette box, and murmured, I can hear perfectly well without those moth wings.

  But now he had great patches of marmalade on the sides of his head. He decided to rub marmalade all over his head and face.

  We’ll just see what Holmes makes of this, he murmured.

  And so Dr. Nigel Bruce Watson, eating marmalade for breakfast, and sitting, as stated, before a long piece of sunlight on the floor, thought best, then, to count the oblongs that made up the larger oblong, which the French door had been describing during the marmalade incident …

  Now Dr. Nigel Bruce Watson, his head covered with marmalade, his ears in a cigarette box, begins to count …

  The Dog’s Dinner

  An old woman was just cooking her dog’s dinner when she decided to review the general decline of things in her west window.

  Yes, there the old sun bleeds and dies of childbirth.

  In the east the anemic child rises, stillborn …

  When she turns back to the pot where she cooks her dog’s dinner she discovers that it is her dog that she is cooking for her dog’s dinner.

  How strange that when cooking a dog’s dinner one cooks the very dog for whom the dinner was being cooked …

  She takes the steaming pot off the stove and puts it on the floor, thinking that the dog will not be having its dinner tonight, thinking that the dog cannot eat itself …

  She draws a chair to the pot, and sits there soaking her feet, seeing her dog floating at her ankles in the mist that rises from his dinner.

  She thinks, if I cooked the dog, how is it I didn’t cook myself? … Perhaps next time … ?

  The Canoeing

  We went upstairs in a canoe. I kept catching my paddle in the banisters.

  We met several salmon passing us, flipping step by step; no doubt to find the remembered bedroom. And they were like the slippered feet of someone falling down the stairs, played backward as in a movie.

  And then we were passing over the downstairs closet under the stairs, and could feel the weight of dark overcoats and galoshes in a cave of umbrellas and fedoras; water dripping there, deep in the earth, like an endless meditation …

  … Finally the quiet waters of the upstairs hall. We dip our paddles with gentle care not to injure the quiet dark, and seem to glide for days by family bedrooms under a stillness of trees …

  The Overlap of Worlds

 
The furniture is like models of animals. You can see the dining room table as a kind of bull standing with its cows, the chairs. Or the easy chair with its footstool, the cow with its calf …

  And they live a life, as if a spirit world and this were overlapped, oblivious to the other.

  In moonlight these animals soften and resume their lives, browsing the rugs; as we, upstairs, asleep in our dreams, resume our lives; overlapping and oblivious to the other …

  In the Forest

  I was combing some long hair coming out of a tree …

  I had noticed long hair coming out of a tree, and a comb on the ground by the roots of that same tree.