In this Issue:
Sir Isaac Brock
Not a syllable will be a fib. I hold my hand over my heart as I stare into the armoire mirror in my bedroom and make this mental pledge. Then I repeat it out loud, for obvious reasons. Not a syllable will be a fib. People might ask who I am addressing in these instances besides myself, and I argue that one in my field must imagine an eavesdropper or, pushing things further, conceive of an interested elderly man from a bygone era leaning out of his tenement window in a soiled undershirt, brandishing an ear trumpet, and following the narrative, such as it is. But even this conceit falters when we consider technological advances that render much of this imagined action badly dated fiction. Perhaps, in which case, I rather stumble into fulfilling my endeavor, which could easily be inferred by the attentive ear. Read more...
For eleven years I held the gauge. A go/no-go gauge does one thing and refuses every other: you offer it the feature, and the steel either takes the part or will not have it, and there is no middle, and there is nothing to discuss. Measurement is not an opinion. The number is inside the part before you lift it from the tray. You only read it aloud, and that is the first lie the work tells you: that reading costs nothing.
When the gauge accepts it makes a small sound, steel entering steel, a click felt in the wrist more than heard. When it refuses it makes nothing at all. So eleven years sound like this: a small sound, a small sound, a small sound, silence. You learn to work by the silences. You learn that a silence is a decision, and that the decision is not yours. Read more...
Apparently, the woman upstairs has been replaced by another woman. The previous one was noisy, and this one is quiet. Last year, the upstairs man went to the ocean with his previous wife and came back with another woman. Now it seems he keeps the new woman in the house with a heavy chain. The previous woman had no chain. I think that is why she ran away.
My husband says the new wife is as light as a feather, but the previous one was like an elephant. The man is afraid the wind will carry her away. So he has put a heavy chain around her. The downstairs woman, who is a witch, says the new wife is involved with a dragon. The dragon put the necklace around her neck to make sure she remains faithful. Read more...
Bringing their clam chowder and lobster bisque, Tortoise finds Bear and Rabbit have moved to separate tables and are arguing at full volume. Rabbit, using real profanity, swears she never went searching for truth, but God was revealed to her in the Stop & Shop, aisle eight, cleaning supplies. Bear turns red, then violet, hands to his throat in universal distress. Tortoise would intervene, but Bear is choking on rage, not oyster crackers.
God does not expose Herself in a Safeway.
Stop & Shop.
Not even in Whole Foods would She.
God isn't a woman; she's a process. Read more...
We needed clothes for my grandfather to be buried in, so my father and I went to the retirement facility. On the way I thought I smelled scorched engine oil. I called back from the passenger seat, "When's the last time you got this thing an oil change?" Dad didn't answer. I didn't press. Maybe the wind had taken my words, but either way, dad was a bundle of nerves and I didn't want to rattle him further. The ride was jerky going down, then he taxied aimlessly around the lot passing several adequate spaces before parking at an angle over multiple spots.
The nicest things we found hanging in granddad's closet were a mustard-yellow zoot suit and an earth-tone plaid polyester bellbottomed leisure suit. Read more...
Two years ago, that would be in 2024, I was in Prague in the lead-up to, and on the occasion of, the centennial of Franz Kafka’s death. I even wrote an article for The Cafe Irreal about my experience. Its title (which I thought to be terribly clever), “Kafka, Kafka Everywhere, and Not a Thought to Think!,” reflected my perception that though Kafka’s name, likeness, and life’s story were to be seen anywhere and everywhere in Prague during that time, there was relatively little about his actual writing. This was enough the case that I made the extreme conjecture in the article’s conclusion that we were “witnessing the integration of Franz Kafka into 21st century celebrity culture. A culture in which, a little bit like the Kardashians, the celebrity's life and loves are widely known but precisely why it was that they became a celebrity in the first place has been forgotten. Read more...
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Please Note: All of the coffee served at The Irreal Cafe is fair trade, organic, shade-grown and not real. All of the food served at The Irreal Cafe is organic, vegan, locally sourced and not real. See "At Our Cafe" for more about what we would serve at The Irreal Cafe and how we would serve it if there were an Irreal Cafe.