Me Head

A Farewell Letter to My Friends

by Christopher Dooley

 

 

Dear All Of You,

  You are such gentle and dear people. Your eyes shine even while the world crumbles before you. You scribble small notes in the margins of life, and these are the words by which you live. I admire and adore you. I want to paint murals in your honor. Large murals spanning the breadth of a cityscape somewhere on the east coast. And when I paint these murals, I will be careful to separate those of you who do not like each other, because that will be the proper thing to do. And I will make all of you appear attractive and well-dressed, free from blemishes and wrinkles, free from the distressed looks created by a lackluster life. I will paint you as caricatures, as comic book characters with over-sized foreheads and big, bright teeth. Not like Howdy-Doody, because you don't have freckles or red hair-well one of you has red hair, but I'll paint you into the back row like one of those unknown people on the cover of Sergeant Pepper's. And I will put all of you in bright red or lime green. These are vibrant colors indicative of your personalities. Except a few of you will be painted in brown because your personalities never came across as being all that dynamic and I thought you were boring. Of course, I probably just didn't know you well enough. But you will all be tanned and fit, with classic bone structures (complete with hard jaw lines and simple noses). Firm, broad shoulders for the men, and supple, rounded breasts for the women. The murals will be magnificent. And when I am finished, I will put a clear glaze over them to protect them from nature and from vandals with cans of spray paint. And I will take photographs of the murals and post them on the website I will create in your honor. This website will be for those people who have heard about the giant murals, but are unable to see them in person-people that are bedridden or have small children or both. I will provide them with brief, glowing bios for each of you. I will tell your life stories and tell why you are worthy of being in the giant murals. I will also have nifty little animations on the site. Things like your caricatured heads flying across the screen or maybe a pie-tossing game that uses you as a target. I'm not sure, but I'll figure it out and it will be magnificent. Because you are magnificent. And when I begin taking orders for T-Shirts with your pictures on them, or small, print versions of the giant murals (framed and matted), I will report my earnings on sleek income statements and balance sheets crafted in your honor. And I will pass these financial records on to potential investors who will give me large sums of venture capital so that I may expand my website, your website, in order to begin generating advertising revenue. Soon, GiantMurals.com will be the talk of Wall Street and I will do an IPO in your honor and it will be magnificent. Oh, you gentle and beautiful people. You have done so much for me, this is the least I can do for you. And when I am sitting in my Central Park West Condo, surrounded by supermodels and bags of cash, I will call you to let you know how much I love and adore you. And I will invite you to New York for a weekend, but you will not make the trip because airfare is too expensive and I will cry because I miss you. And I will look out my enormous windows at the giant mural of your caricatured, clown-like faces with huge foreheads and loping ears and I will miss you even more. Yes, dear friends, I will miss you.