Issue Thirteen
- Seven Prose Poems by Charles Simic
- A Portrait of Progress by Daniel Flores-Guadiana
- In the Van by Laurence Davies
- Blue Ronel Running by Sandra M. Jensen
- Shapely by Wim Hylen
- Shadows on the Wall by Mark Budman
- Dreams & Abductions by James Foreman
- Jill and the Octopus by Rob McClure Smith
- Termix by Blumfeld 2001
- The Long Fragment Preceding Sufficient Expiation by Stefanie Freele
- Lucky Night by Saeed Tavakkol
- Detected by rovesciato
- The Parrot by Ezra Kyrill Erker
- Impossible Hunger by Eruch Ernst
Editors:
Alice Whittenburg
G.S. Evans
www.cafeirreal.com
editors@cafeirreal.com
This issue went online
February 1, 2005
copyright 2005 The Cafe Irreal
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irreal (re)view #4
Jill and the Octopus
by Rob McClure Smith
he octopus strolled out of the ocean and loped casually up the sandbank towards the Ice Cream Slip.
Naturally, the bandstand was chaotic. The choir broke and ran. Mrs. Adolphi was trampled underfoot by a fleeing cellist while Heidi McAfee, foot wedged in Sewall's tuba, hopped headlong into a pile of music stands and assorted scattered cymbals. It was all a regular flummox.
"Aw jeez, no Sousa again this year," muttered old Mr. Belardo, folding up his deckchair.
"Would you like one of our frothy cappuccino specials," Jill proffered. Never having served phylum Mollusca before, she had no idea really.
The brown skin of the octopus was mottled and scarred. He wiped a green discharge from his saucer eyes. "I am so sad. So very sad and all alone. The ocean is deep and dark, but tonight the lights of the anglerfish glow like underwater constellations."
"I have never visited the ocean depths," said Jill, "though I have lived in New Bedford my entire life."
"Tonight I intend to orbit the husks of dead stars," said the octopus, levitating slightly. "Coming?" He wrapped an exploratory tentacle around her waist. "Ever had your bones irradiated white by a spinning quasar?"
Jill wrinkled her brow. "I'll have to pass on that. Stay to fix up the mess you made. You silly cephalopod you."
The octopus puckered the rims of his cups. He looked paler now, his beak retracted. "Allow me to offer assistance. Ten arms are better than two." He neatly scooped up two flutes and Erin Tuttle's buckled bassoon.
"Hmmm. Back by midnight?"
"Possibly."
Through the asteroid belt they reeled, a molten blue Saturn settling its ice rings to starboard.
"Mattapoisett certainly has its charms," said the octopus, "But, for me, with the possible exception of Ned's Point, these are invariably trumped by the interstellar spaces."
Jill's hair streaked yellow behind her, a meteor-flash. "This is way wicked cool. Before this, I really had no idea how night was done."
Contracting his mantel, the octopus jetted stars through his siphon in a rush of white light while a cloud of purple-black ink, pouring over the moons of Jupiter, turned the sky a deep chocolate mocha.
Rob McClure Smith lives in Galesburg, Illinois. He has published stories in Chelsea, Confrontation, and other literary magazines. He was the recipient of the 2004 Scotsman Orange Short Story Award.
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