Mr. Initials
When Paolo Tomassi opened his eyes that morning, he felt completely disoriented. Where was he? What was that place that so resembled his bedroom but yet, at the same time, was so ostensibly different? A person goes to bed, exhausted from a long day, and the only thing they expect from the night is to get a little rest. That's logical enough, isn't it? You open your eyes like you do every morning, your wife looks at your old face, your eyes all full of sleep, and if she still feels any affection she asks, "Honey, did you sleep well?"
But that day nobody asked Paolo about his night's rest. And it was not because his wife, fed up with his relentless obsession for fashion and his affinity for runway models, had sent him packing three years prior, but because there were at least 20 questions that were more interesting than that one. For instance, where am I? Or the most wordly but no less apropos: What the hell happened to my things?
A person feels fortunate for lots of reasons in life. A good job... A kid... And even for the little things that have been made popular by movies. A hot coffee on a cold morning... Sticking your hand into a bag of grain... But if a person stops to think, beneath the initial layer of insignificance there is whole list of things which are far more important. Paolo had just discovered one of them. "I love getting up in the same place where I went to sleep."
Nevertheless. when he got over the terrible fright, Paolo began to realize that he was in the same bedroom as always. His things had simply been transformed. His beige lamp, his mahogany-colored wardrobe, the light salmon-colored wall. Each and every one of these items in his room was still there but they had all spontaneously changed to a strange gold color. A lavish and highly distinguished color, which gave the room a touch of acrylic elegance.
But it was not only a matter of color: the furniture had also undergone mutations. The very old chest of drawers, which he inherited from his mother, had metamorphosed its sharp edges of old wood and opted instead for greater simplicity in its lines. The lamp on the beside table had abandoned its modest metallic base for a complex conjunction of wires. And what about the small paintings... They had joined the furniture revolution and united for the same cause in a giant collage-style painting which, thanks to a new touch from a spray can and some volcanically splattered paint, combined perfectly with the predominant color.
Paolo had the appropriate reaction of rubbing his eyes and taking another look around. But it was utterly useless. To his distress, everything remained the same. He pushed the blanket off to the left, put on the designer slippers that had sprung up from under the bed and took a few steps on the recently christined parquet floor.
The living room had also changed completely. The gold color had invaded everything, although in certain places it went with the inmaculate white and the black. The couches and the chairs, the table, the bookshelves... Even the TV had gotten about 25 centimeters thinner and was now dangling along with the DVD player.
Unbelievable... What's happened to my house? It's not that Paolo didn't like the change. Everything seemed to have been tastefully decorated and, objectively speaking, the overall appearance of the apartment had improved. Everything was terrific except for one insignificant detail: He had not had anything to with it. Anyway, thanks to Ikea we know for a fact that the appearance of your home is the external representation of that you as a person make of yourself. And it was all quite lovely -gorgeous, really- but it did not represent Paolo.
Unable to endure the barrage of emotions, Paolo felt his legs trembling and sat himself down on the floor. He sank his eyes into his arms and took a breather. This can't be, any moment now I'll just wake up, this must be a horrible dream. He lifted his head anew to look at all of the changes and suddenly he noticed something that he hadn't seen before. A set of initials, PT, written in rounded, flamboyant letters with such enormous proportions that they completely covered every wall of the living room.
Paolo got up to examine the new design and, to his surprise, he began to see that the same letters were everywhere. PT, PT, PT, PT... Next to the power button on the TV, on the couch cushions, at the center of the table... He returned to the bedroom, where an enormous PT had taken over the headboard of his bed. Then he got an idea, ran to the kitchen and opened the silverware drawer with a trembling hand. This can't be! PT, on every fork, on every knife, even on the corkscrew...
He was on the verge of tears when the phone rang. It took him a while to realize it because it didn't sound like it used to. He walked over to his new PT cordless telephone and nervously picked up the receiver. Hello? Paolo, it's me, Claudio. Paolo smiled as he recognized the familiar voice of his agent. At last something that hasn't changed! Paolo? Yes, hi, Claudio. You're not going to believe what happened to me. Wait, Paolo. Me first. I've got some wonderful news. I just got a call from that multinational in England. They love your clothes, Paolo. They're crazy. They want to invest millions of euros to launch an entire line of your products. Congratulations, Paolo Tomassi! You've just become a megabrand.
A megabrand? Ever since he opened his sewing workshop in Milan, Paolo had always fantasized about becoming the new Versace. His ex-wife used to amuse herself by looking at the logos that he himself would draw in the margins of his diary and, over the course of time, the flamboyant Paolo Tomassi had evolved into PT. Like his agent told him, acronyms help you remember names. Paolo, people say Calvin Klein but... how do they write it? They write CK.
Paolo decided to go down to the street to buy a newspaper. A routine activity always helps someone recover from an agitation. But it seemed like he could no longer be at ease anywhere. People were turning around, trying to recognize the great PT in the cowering, scared figure buried deep into his coat. I thought he was taller, shouted a woman as if he were not there. No, no, his father was from Naples, explained a lady to the crowd.
Feeling overstimulated, he began to get dizzy again and felt a need to go and rest in his shop. Distressed, he walked along the sidewalks with his feet as light as feathers. Milan is disgusting, he decided. You can't go for even two days without feeling like the city is enveloped in a thick cloud of discotheque smoke. Paolo walked without thinking, with the same combination of security and abandon typical of someone who walks the same route every day. But when he finally reached the door to his little shop, he did not recognize at all the place at which he had arrived.
Paolo was already beyond the point of disconcertion. So he calmly walked into the inmense 20-story building crowned with a glamorous PT that measured several meters high. He continued into the lobby, greeted the concierge and asked to be accompanied to his office.
Upon entering, he found his agent waiting inside. Claudio! Thank God you're here. What have done with my life, what happened to my things. Nothing Paolo, nothing. We've just improved them. They were done by a studio in London, Paolo; they're really good, they're specialized in corporate image. They only work for the big-timers.
An expression of dissatisfaction came over Paolo's face. He was so perplexed that he could barely speak. But it's not me, Claudio, he stuttered as his tears began to flow. Of course they're not you. You no longer exist, Paolo. What exists now are your clothing, your accesories, and what people read in the magazines. Paolo Tomassi is dead and no one has seen the obituary. Now there's just PT and the only ones interested in the person behind that are your parents, your secretary and your shareholders.
Then Paolo began to think about Versace once again. He would always Call on the spirit of Gianni in difficult moments. On this occasion, however, he did non stop to ponder his life full of successes, his fashion shows or his friendships with the top models. This time his thoughts turned to the dark-haired man in his fifties who was tragically murdered in his enormous mansion in Miami.
Paolo, who was now a couple years into his thirties, could not help but come up with a new theory about the death of the genius. Ladies and gentleman of the jury, it could not possibly have been murder. When that psychopath opened fire on Versace, Gianni had already been dead for 20 years.
Written by Alberto Orte
Illustrations: Sergi Sánchez
Editor: Carlos Serrat
