RIP Russell Edson

from See Jack (2009)

PORTRAIT OF A HEADACHE

    Because a farmer was going to slaughter a cow he thought he'd have sex with it. And said to his wife, So I'll have sex with it that the possibility isn't wasted by death. Then I'll kill it and we'll have steaks and short ribs.

    That makes sense, she said.

    But first I'll have sex with it because it's going to die anyway, and I won't have to be hanging around the barn evenings pretending to like it more than I do.

    Good thinking, she said.

     If it weren't going to die sex would be out of the question. But, because it's going to die, it doesn't matter. Death forgives even as it forgets.

     A nice thought, she said.

     And after it's dead you can have a nightgown made of cowhide and wear its horns on your head like a Viking queen.

     Nice use of resources, she said.

     And so I'll have sex with it. And even if it gets pregnant, it'll be dead before it can go mooing to the authorities.

     A shrewd caution, she said.

     I'll stand on a milking stool and do it just this once. But only once, because I have better things to do than standing on a milking stool every night- No, no, just this once!

     I don't care what you do, you've given me a headache! she cried.

PORTRAIT OF A REALIST

     There is an old man who pukes metal. Today bedsprings. Yesterday, the iron maiden of Nuremberg.

     His wife is more for cloth. Today she pukes used mummy wrappings. Yesterday, a teddy bear without a head.

     Suddenly the old man pukes a battalion of lead soldiers. His wife upchucks a bundle of soiled diapers.

     They have a son who's also a puker. But, unlike his parents, he pukes real puke...