After a man inadvertently swallows an insect, he withdraws from the human race; another feels an ape growing inside him; and a son struggles to decipher the meaning of his father's death. Visceral, surprising, and surreal, these twelve stories from David Clerson move from the charged darkness of the woods to the urban underground, while characters set a course to see out the night.Scurrying insects and luminous jellyfish reveal a predatory, ever-present world of childhood fairy tales, lurking shadows, and unrelenting fevers. Individuals are swallowed up by cities and bogs in this study of nature and humanity in all their terrifying glory. Throughout, Clerson draws—and blurs—the lines between man and beast, and life and death, all beneath an impassive, ailing sky.