J Martin Strangeweather

The Emperor Wears No-Clothes™ 

Olga Kalashnikov’s see-through tuxedos 

sell for ten million dollars U.S., 

and that’s not including the bowtie. 

Every high-profile world leader owns one, 

partly to support Olga’s cause, 

mainly to support their insatiable need 

for public adoration

and social stratification. 

Each suit takes Olga a year to produce, 

working ten hours a day, 

including weekends and holidays. 

Custom-made, completely handsewn 

from 100% recycled plastic, 

which she converts into a clear microfiber fabric 

that’s durable yet breathable. 

No one knows how she does it, 

and she’s not telling. 

Ten million dollars a suit, 

distributed freely to the country’s poorest babushkas, 

keeping almost nothing for herself,

just enough to live in modest comfort. 

She’s made thirty-two tuxedos to date. 

That’s $320,000,000 given away in $100,000 donations

to Russia’s destitute elderly population. 

Olga turned 70 this year. 

She doesn’t think she has many tuxedos left in her, 

but her list of backorders goes on 

for more than a hundred years. 

She says she’ll take on an apprentice 

when she feels ready to retire 

to the earth,

but only someone she can trust

never to sell the secret of the wondrous fabric

to Gucci or Versace

or Levi Strauss.

The tuxedos themselves are surreal masterpieces, 

double-breasted coats with peaked lapels 

and vented sides,

faceted buttons of Swarovski crystal, 

spread-collared pleated shirts 

with plackets and French cuffs 

woven from the same invisible fabric 

as the jacket and trousers, 

gossamer threads catching iridescent rainbows 

from every angle. 

Nothing but a satiny sheen between the eye and its fancy.

Olga the humble seamstress from Volgograd, 

her patient process, her fantastical product, 

the redistribution of wealth to those who need it most, 

it’s more than creative genius, 

it’s creative love,

from start to finish. 

She calls her line of tuxedos No-Clothes™. 

The kings and presidents of many countries 

wear No-Clothes™, 

and the irony isn’t lost on anyone. 

Imagine a roomful of dignitaries 

with their naked truth on avant-garde display, 

proving they have nothing to hide 

or be ashamed of.

This is the revolutionary art of the 22nd century, 

if not the 21st. 

The New Lou

Chinese fighter jets bombed the Louvre 

during the Fourth World War. 

Rather than rebuild the world’s largest, most iconic 

art museum, 

the French government saw fit to leave it 

the way it was—

brutally exposed,

and truthful.

The bombing fused the literal 

with the figurative,

transforming all the masterpieces 

into a single work of art,

an installation on the grandest of scales,

eleven thousand years in the making.

The demolished museum-cum-installation art

is called The New Lou. 

The artist is simply credited as China.

The whole blasted site 

is covered in a glass and steel dome 

to protect what remains of the artworks 

from further damage owing to the elements.

Walkways have been cleared through the wreckage,

but many areas are off-limits due to 

unstable floors and ceilings.

You still have to pay a €20 entry fee.

Only €20 to feel something real.

The walls left standing 

are blackened with blast marks, 

but guards will still give you a warning 

if you get too close to the art.

In what’s left of the Richelieu Wing,

we find pieces of the Code of Hammurabi, 

but not enough to answer this question:

if the Code of Hammurabi’s wisdom is lost forever, 

then what?

Making our way through the ruins 

of the Denon Wing, 

we come across the Winged Victory of Samothrace, 

its wings blown off, 

looking anything but victorious, 

and the charred remnant of Mona Lisa, 

her smile just a memory, 

Liberty Leading the People in tatters.

Among the marble debris of the Sully Wing,

we greet the Venus de Milo, 

now headless as well as armless, 

and the Great Sphinx of Tanis,

not looking so great 

with half its face gone.

Zeus lies in scorched rubble, 

all the old gods and goddesses toppled.

A hundred centuries of well-crafted illusions

laid bare,

unearthing deeper layers of the artistic process

than the original artists 

had intended:

the folly of man,

the peace of death,

the beauty of decay,

the silence of eternity.

More Cake, Please

Swiping to the left of what’s left to swipe, 

I come across the pretty face 

of the woman of my dreams.

I come across the pretty face,

the pretty face on the screen. 

Her name is Orpah Dorpa Ling, 

which is Phonysian for 

“one-legged goat milker from the Hills of Ling.” 

I know this because I speak Phonysian fluently. 

I’m part Phonysian. 

Most Southern Californians 

have Phonysian blood in them. 

We meet at Jack’s Bistro. 

She doesn’t look anything like her picture. 

There’s no frame around her, 

and she’s not made of pixels, 

though she does seem two-dimensional.

Orpah orders a microphone and a film crew. 

I order breadsticks. 

They come right away, 

fresh from the oven, piping hot. 

Not the breadsticks, the film crew. 

“Look under your chair,” says Orpah.

“Huh?”

“Surprise!” she says. 

“For participating in tonight’s date, 

everyone gets a Samsung Galaxy IQ smartphone!” 

“Um…” 

All the diners are looking under their chairs, 

squealing and oinking with delight as they hold up

their brand-new Samsung Galaxy IQ smartphones, 

still in the package.

“Bachelor Number One,” says Orpah, 

reading from her cue card,

“who were you fantasizing about 

the first time you masturbated?”

The cameraman zooms in on my face.

“Er…”

The waiter comes with two baskets of breadsticks 

and sets them on the table. 

“Only one of these is real,” he says. 

“The other is a cake. 

Which one is real 

and which one is fake?”

“Uh…” 

I have no patience for dating games. 

I choose the one 

that looks like a basket of breadsticks.

“Surprise!” says Orpah. 

“They’re both made of cake! 

It’s all cake! Everything’s cake!

Have yourself a sweet slice of life!” 

I grab the cake knife 

and stick it in the waiter’s gut.

She isn’t exaggerating.

The waiter is cake.

I flip the table over, 

only to discover that it’s cake, too— 

hazelnut marzipan 

with a vanilla fondant tablecloth.

I check to see if my date is cake, 

slicing her in half, right down the middle. 

Her raspberry cream filling 

oozes onto the floor. 

The floor itself is made of cake, 

a dry, run-of-the-mill chocolate. 

Slicing further downward, 

I split our four-layer planet in twain, 

exposing the whole world’s cakey fakery.

Everything and everyone

is mostly just frosting. 

Having had my fill of the spectacle,

I plunge the knife deep inside my chest, 

and cut myself a slice. 

Did I mention I’m cake, too? 

We’re all moist and delicious cakes, 

ooey and gooey and decadently rich.

We can’t help but devour one another. 

It’s a cake eat cake world.