ricky garni |
|
| |
|
Ricky Garni is a graphic designer and bicycle collector, living in Carrboro, North Carolina. His work has been published most recently in Pank, Medulla Review, Shampoo, The Bicycle Review, Prick of the Spindle, and other venues.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
to Peter Graves, who died tomorrow
It’s been three whole days since someone famous died. I kind of look forward to it when I open up the paper in the morning. A small cup of coffee. A piece of toast with a little butter. Dead man not walking.
“Surprise me!” I say outloud to my cat (let’s call him Whoopie Time–isn’t that just like me?), she who's been dead for twenty years. And what I mean by Surprise me! is of course, “Make it somebody young and healthy.” And “Make it weird.” And “Extra points,” naturally,“for virile.” Of course the worst of the worst is when it is someone who shouldn’t die in the first place, or your Mother, or Johnny Carson, or some joker who you thought was dead already, like ____________________.
I won’t say who that is. I have feelings, you know. You don’t think it, but I do. I am serious. Nobody should think anybody is dead, and it should always be a surprise every time. A big fat surprise that makes you sad. Or a mighty little surprise, like a surprise party that you kind of expected. "Mighty quiet in here," you say as you enter the front door. Or: “Surprise me,” say it quietly, at the very end of the dock, looking at the saddest thing in the world–you know, barnacles–right before the sun sets on them and doesn’t even care and doesn’t even notice them or me when I whisper to them: I’m not crying, it will be all right.
|
|
|