The Clam Theater by Russell Edson - an 80-pager published in 1973 by Wesleyan University Press. Here are seven of the dozens forming this collection. As you read Russell, feel your mind cracking and running over the rug, out of the house, out to the mica glitter of stars . . .
THE ANCESTRAL MOUSETRAP
We are left a mousetrap, baited with cheese. We must not jar it, or our ancestor's gesture and pressure are lost as the trap springs shut.
He has relinquished his hands to what the earth makes of flesh. Still, here in this mousetrap is caught the thumb print of his pressure.
A mouse would steal this with its death, this still unspent jewel of intent.
In a jewel box it is kept, to keep it from the robber-mouse; even as memory in the skull was kept, to keep it from the robber-worm, who even now is climbing a thief in the window of his eyes.
THE ANT FARM
In spite even of Columbus the world collapses and goes flat again.
The sky is a bell jar where a child in another scale watches his ant farm.
When the bored child yawns two thousand years pass.
Someday we have crashed to the playroom floor, the careless child knocks us over with his fire truck . . . All that dirt lying in its broken sky.
Swept up, it is thrown into a garbage can at the back of the universe.
APE AND COFFEE
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 you sure don't look human said the man.
But that doesn't make me a fluid twittered the ape.
Well I don't know what the hell you are, so just stop it, cried the man.
I was just sitting here reading the newspaper when you splashed coffee all over me, piped the ape.
i don't care if you are a liquid, you just better stop splashing on things, cried the man.
Do I look fluid to you? Take a good look, hooted the ape.
If you don't stop I'll put you in a cup, screamed the man.
I'm not a fluid, screeched the ape.
Stop it, stop it, screamed the man, you are frightening me.
THE FAMILY MONKEY
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 been made, said the monkey merchant.
But the family always planned on a steam monkey.
Well, said the monkey merchant, just as the wind-up monkey gave way to the steam monkey, the steam monkey has given way to the gas and electric monkeys.
Is that like the grandfather clock being replaced by the grandchild clock?
Sort of, said the monkey merchant.
So we bought the electric monkey, and plugged its umbilical cord into the wall.
The smoke coming out of its fur told us something was wrong.
We had electrocuted the family monkey.
THE FLOOR
The floor is something we might fight against. Whilst seemingly mere platform for the human stance, it is that place that men fall to.
I am not dizzy. I stand as a tower, a lighthouse, the pale ray of my sentiency flowing from my face.
But should I go dizzy I crash down into the floor, my face into the floor, my attention bleeding into the cracks of the floor.
Dear horizontal place, I do not wish to be a rug. Do not pull at the difficult head, this teetering bulb of dread and dream . . .
KILLING THE APE
They were killing the ape with infinite care; not too much or it runs past dying and is born again.
Too little delivers a sick old man covered with fur.
. . . Gently gently out of hell, the ape climbing out of the ape.
THE TURKEY HAPPENING
There were feathers growing on his wall. Thickly. And with pink turkey flesh beneath.
The feathers were spreading across the ceiling. And the floor was beginning to protrude in scaly bird toes like the roots of trees.
He could not tell if he had not now become himself feathers and turkey flesh.
He wondered if he was not now feathers and turkey flesh.
Russell Edson, 1935-2014
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