In this Issue:
Trap
It wasn't easy to drive through that narrow, winding street and finally park. But I scarcely get out of the car when I can see that I will not be able to go back. That it is neither possible to turn around nor to back out without damaging my car or crashing into the others. I am gripped by panic. So what now?! I am standing helplessly by my car when it starts to occur to me that, in fact, it's just a dream. That I don't have to drive out of here at all, at some point I'll just wake up! Only as I am waking up the anxiety about what will happen to my car returns. Read more...
Charles de Gaulle and JFK
Veins convey Arrivals, arteries Departures. Limbs morph into runways; digits into terminals; hearts into control towers. Intestines ramify to become conveyor belts; esophaguses de-differentiate, then redevelop as baggage claims. Skin cells are re-purposed as restaurants, neurons as information kiosks.
Through convulsive rituals of construction and transfiguration, one kind of life is transmuted to another.
Great men don't really die. Read more...
The probability of two people occupying the same physical space at the same time is unimaginably small, but it has happened, with lamentably disastrous consequences. It must be a natural phenomenon, because no human could conceive of such a thing, and anyway, there is no natural law that prohibits this from happening. Just as there is no natural law that prevents time travel to the past, or physical travel faster than light.
A scientific committee has currently been established to investigate the phenomenon. Read more...
The Roaches at Trafalgar
The wave breaks into a stinging salt spray, which lashes over the bow of HMS Triumphant, as she boldly dances with the elements. First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Horatio Nelson gazes at the French Man-O-War through his spyglass, sure-footed and steady, even while the crew struggle to maintain their balance in the heavy seas. His mandibles twitch when the Lafayette turns to deliver a powerful broadside. Through the lens, cannons flash, belch smoke, and recoil. There is a muted clap of thunder, followed seconds later by ghastly whines and an unearthly ripping, as the salvo passes harmlessly overhead. A rising swell has spoiled the French gunners in their aim. Read more...
What's A Code For Revolution?
Because the president failed the CAPTCHA, the nukes were launching. Where was I? My brother was giving me a mastectomy in his bathtub. As these things do, they set in motion a series of events we called home life. My brother and I had a beautiful wedding in thickets my brother had planted half a century ago outside Salt Lake City when he was a Mormon wife who dug rare birds out of the ground to delicately kiss and convert them. Which is to say we might have stopped the nukes. We were known, like pagan gods, to flirt with turning disaster into baby bonnets. One time I performed a very convincing Flamenco for Francisco Franco. I dropped my last baby teeth in the last well in Utah. Read more...
About Our Coffee and Other Fare
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.