Il Capo
An (un) expected news
A simple potato makes a different sound if you drop it down in the dark, as in the dark the potato itself was different
The ghost
Now finally we can meet the Boss. We’ll be there soon, following one of our ghosts. Odontologists and dentists usually get mad about one thing, people sucking candies. Another reason that makes them angry is smoking. However we cannot forget that ghost, silently entering in our apartments, getting invisible, so often in our hands drugging our worst awakening. Yes, this enemy of the oral hygiene is commonly called caffè.
Coffee, please
In the morning, though, it’s an expression of human culture and personality. This ghost can have long or short chains, it depends on your own taste. With its density, fragrance and quantity can designate a different human drinking it.
Espresso
Who’s searching for an espresso (without any sugar, please) is the kind of person eager to find inside his cup the energy of African or Brasilian sun, ready to blast in his veins. The taste is about 50% black ground and 50% liquorice. Then we can find the other espresso people, but that have decided to add some milk (so we have to change again and call it macchiato). As if you wanted to hug your daddy and mummy together, sleeping in the big bed with them. On one hand you have a big arm ready to defend you, on the other the typical softness of your mom. Both of them (ristretto and macchiato) cannot manage to drink it without a glass of acqua. Some people drink it before the coffee to clean their mouths or just because in the morning people are thirsty like a baby cactus.
Big cup
Then, after this small generalisation, we can open the ocean of people drinking coffee with a big cup. In some places this is the usual way to drink coffee, but in others (the place of ristretto and macchiato), this make a huge difference between a drinker and another. Putting apart barley coffee, ginseng coffee and co. (we should ask Zimbardo for help, as this is high psychology) we’ll focus just in coffee with big cup.
Dilute coffee
This choice follows the current way humanity deal with situation: quantity wins over quality. As people decide between two jumpers the one having more feathers, here people choose coffee over the quantity of water it’s diluite in. Here then you find people that have the time to choose between arabica or other roasting of coffee beans, and others that throw some sugar inside and run in the traffic. For drivers, the shape of the cup is quite important. You know, traffic it’s their own habitat. The cup has to be not too big, the right size in order to enter in the cup holder (with a coffee cup lid).
The alien
The owner of my feet is an alien, deciding to pour the precious dark liquid in a thermos flask. If not alien, for sure is a sort of endangered species. Then, he place his black thermos inside the backpack and go. As part of everyday routine, fill up the thermos is just the last part. Before there is the body weight check, clean the exposed bones (also called teeth) with a noisy electric toothbrush, ten minutes stretching, a glass of cold milk and an apple.
Now is time to prepare some caffè.
A ritual
The boiler whistles meaning the water is ready, then two spoons of soluble coffee are enough to make the miracle happens. The thermos is from Japan, and it’s able to maintain the temperature almost forever. A routine is one of the secrets if you want to be a successful salesman. Everyday you need energy in order to prepare work groups, read huge files with numbers, newspapers full of words and stand with big smiles in front of customers not accustomed to wash their hands after being in the toilet. Smiling is the key in this job. You need to show your teeth the right way, not to scare anyone. Today in front of the boss, that smile will be the most important weapon.
Tomorrow’s man
So then these two beautiful clean shoes are walking fast in the street with tight laces. The straight and self confident pace of the tomorrow- man, between tree- lined streets and sidewalks clean as they were waiting room. In this kind of exclusive areas you can easily loose your sense of reality. It always seems that you never move a foot-step from the stairs in front of your house.
Moving from this residential complex, I can feel my pace less self- confident, even the shoulders are less straight when an immigrate or a strange man with a golden tooth get too close. In the evening most of all, when a person out-of-context appears behind a streetlight, the neck of the man of the future curves a bit, showing all his sense of insecurity.
It’s kind of a nice thing, professional even.
The office
Every morning every small details, starting from the Boss perfume, are there in the name of the image of the unbeatable salesman who knows already the future and forget the past.
So here I am with a leap in an office with clean, neat colours (white and brown over all). The typical office with a plant similar to a potato with leaves, and pictures with some kids and moms. Not the happiest pictures ever, but enough to make the environment less hospital-like. This kind of places attract everyday a multitude of human beings. Places in which words are emptied of any meaning, and cup are not reusable as well as conversations, usually so useless that they can finish without no one noticing. Everything here is an introduction, a prelude in which a joke is there just to giggle hysterical (but polite).
Finally, the Boss
Here is where S. is sitting right now, right after shaking manly his hand with the person in fornt of him. No silence needed, between salesperson would be seen as a waste of time. Silence is ok if compressed in few places, for the rest is better to kill it with loud music in the gym or with non-stop useless chatting as
How’s everything?
Fine, amazing, and you?
Everything’s fine and you?
All good, thanks, you know I’m really happy to…
Sure sure, anyways you have to try this brunches
Where?
In the centre, right across the Three Towers
Later I’m gonna take the number
Yes yes, so S.
Yes, it’s me
So now if in one side you can feel just nothing, here the legs are shaking under the desk. The index scratching the right ear, as it was an invisible fly.
The shark
The man just in front of us doesn’t show any emotion, with his leather shoes and a shark gaze. You know, the kind of look you can call ‘resolute’ if you’re in the safe environment of an office, but let you shiver as you are in front of a serial killer if you meet him in the street. Tall even if seated, with his hands crossed in his lap want to clarify that he is the Boss. A person situated above you in the pyramid, not as the angel in the Christmas tree. The Boss, the head, when at the same time most of the people aim for a knee, a finger, or a neck. He knows he’s over you and he’s not going to conceal it. So then from the Boss we can have some useful informazioni
Your profile…
As you probably already know
And the legs over me are shaking, almost vibrating
You have been for long time a good candidate for the position of Sub- Boss. We monitored you, in the last five years. So we decided that your profile is not…
And here the legs dropped, as well as the shoulders. Incredulity mixed with sadness and confusion
The story continues next week with The Wall
La storia sarà pubblicata una volta a settimana e tutti i diritti della storia e relative traduzioni sono riservati a Flyingstories.org e nella persona di Daniele Frau.
Tutte le grafiche sono fatte a mano, realizzate con tecniche differenti da Gabriele Manca, DMQproductions, che ne detiene i diritti.
All English articles published in Souls (alive) proofread by Elisabeth Corcoran
