Portals

Martin always loves buying typewriters from the nineteenth century.
What he loves best is opening up a case and discovering a spider
there from a hundred years ago. He knows that if anyone had opened
the case in the last hundred years, they would have brushed the spider
away.

***

Buttons

People often ask: should I but a soft red button? When I hear people ask this, it occurs to me that once upon a time they were not aware that a soft button was even an option. They would go about their business, day after day, month after month, year after year, without a soft red button, and they were as happy as anyone could be – without a soft red button.

And then, out of nowhere, came the soft red button.

Many people bought it and were happy. Many people bought it and were happier than they ever imagined that they could be. Many others did not buy it and candidly wondered if they would have been happier in their lives if they had bought it. Of course there were some who bought a soft red button and were neither happier nor sadder than they had been before they had bought a soft red button, therefore they were less happy than they imagined they could have been.

I chose not to buy a soft red button. I did so because I decided that I would prefer to remain in a state of anticipation and hope, wondering if perhaps my life might be better, if only I were to purchase, or even perhaps lease, a soft red button. You might ask: why not do so and find out? And yet when ask me a question like that, I cannot help but wish we had never met.

Were I to buy a soft red button, I would like for it to be red, and soft, and mine.

***

Ricky Garni works as a graphic designer for a regional wine company and staff photographer for Horse & Buggy Press (Durham, NC), a gallery and design studio that uses a nifty 19th century letterpress for many of their publications.