Creepy Mickey Mouse

“I find this work really flat. The client expects a disruptive strategy, and this isn’t it. Fix it, I need it for tomorrow.”

I was already out of breath.

I thought I was in, but instead I was out. Out, out in space, up there.

All it took was just clenching my fists and breaking everything.

---

The small corner meeting room is like a fishless aquarium: badly cleaned windows, piglet-pink walls, a fried toner smell that sticks to your clothes.

Gianluca paces back and forth in his vegan leather loafers — “Ultimately they’re even cooler” — tapping on the IKEA desk and swinging a little statuette while he talks. That kind of creepy Mickey Mouse conceived by some trendy American designer, which he usually keeps on the top shelf of the Pallucco bookcase like a sacred idol — “That’s gggggassss…got it for cheap on a second-hand site, the guy thought it was just a toy.”

I nod, take notes, hiding under the palm of my hand the tremor of a vein in my temple.I’ve been sleeping in bits for ten days: Ping at midnight, meetings at 8. When I close my eyes, I dream of being guillotined by a Trello card, slides with bullet points all red - drops of blood dripping from my nails, broken from constantly pressing Command+Z.

My jaw is stiff from bruxism, my neck on fire, two mouth ulcers — Mila and Shiro — throwing a rave in my gums, fueled by all the coffee mixed with Red Bull I’ve been chugging. He keeps going : brand essence, purpose, omnichannel and other words that once sounded like sweet prayers but now sound like curses.

All I can think about is what it would be like to smash that well-combed skull with something heavy. What does it feel like, to kill a nemesis? Is it the trigger for a cathartic ecstasy or a one-way ticket to a whole fucking mess? Both? But it's a thought that stays tangled there, in the back of my brain, in my most exciting, wettest dreams…until I find the ugly mouse in my hands

Gianluca hands it to me, giggling.“Tactile, right? It’s almost an antistress toy. Give it a gooood squeeze.”I hold it, feel its weight. Something flips in my stomach. Meeting’s over, he pats me on the shoulder — “You got this” — and heads for the toilet to get rid of at least one of the three protein smoothies he’s had.

I stay there, motionless, seated, with the creepy Mickey Mouse on my lap.I breathe. I enjoy those five minutes I can spend without him. A splash of paradise that separates the hell of office days from the double hell of evenings hunched over Keynote.

When he comes back, he’s ready to talk again. His mouth open, his eyes narrowed.

“And, fuck, change the color palette, for fuck's sake. It’s a real piece of shit now. We risk making them sick.”

There, the vein in my neck bursts.

Splat.

The crash of the statuette against Gianluca’s skull produces a wet and surprisingly hard sound at the same time. So much for a stress ball, I knew it.

It seems soft, yeah, like one of those plastic little gadgets they give you as a freebie with boxes of laundry detergent. However, the large patch of skin that flies off my boss’s temple, accompanied by a generous spray of thick, dark blood, says otherwise.

“W-what the fu—”

Gianluca’s eyes bulge and he collapses onto his side. He slumps over the desk for a moment and then slides to the floor.

---

“Now - that’s disruptive.”

I turn the ugly punk design Mickey Mouse over in my hands as Gianluca moans and rolls onto his back, like an upturned cockroach.

Drops of blood drip onto the fluorescent green-yellow of the toy. I couldn’t say if that color mix is an eyesore or a perfect match.

After all, Gianluca didn’t give me the nickname “Shit Taste” for nothing, did he?

“Good thing you’re here to do other things…” , he always says, “…if you did graphics it would be a disaster. Sure you’re not colorblind? Get your eyes checked”. I shrug: I’m not one to quit projects halfway through, I’m in the flow now. I lean over the agonizing body, straddle him, and deliver another blow right to his forehead.

Splat.

This time the skin doesn’t fly off; it caves in on itself, creating a small hollow between his eyebrows. The crunchy crack of the fracture is paired with a choked groan.

“I thought a hands-on approach might work,” I take a nice deep breath and bring the design mouse down again, sinking one of its ears into Gianluca’s other temple. “You know, getting our hands dirty, for those of us always in front of a computer it’s a godsend to get a little messy, a return to real life.”

Gianluca answers me with a bubbly gurgle of saliva mixed with blood and mucus. He gasps and tries to hiss something, but nothing sensible comes from his lips, just more little bubbles.

“You always say it too, right? We’re not like those Milanese blowhards who stay shut in the office all day long, here we’re all friends, we’re innovative, we have fun at work, we’re sexy cool.”

Another thrust. I miss the target and the blow takes out half his right eye. Part of the eyeball bulges from its socket with a sound that reminds me of beaten eggs.

“Oops.”

I try again: I hit the mark and it’s in that moment that I see life slip from the muscles of his face, too round to leave room for a flaccid, mushy nothingness.

Dead. Gianluca is dead.

Game over.

I look around, still straddling his belly covered by the purple SUN68 polo that he finds — found? Yes, found. Bye bye Gianlu — so funny. The Pallucco bookcase is chock-full of all the objects Gianluca loves — loved — to accumulate in every corner of the office over which he can — could — assert his dominion.

His way of spreading everywhere that unbearable desire to be a young CEO, different from everything and everyone. I get up and move closer to look at them better, with the ugly mouse still tight in my hands. Gianlu’s blood drips onto the black stoneware floor and leaves a trail like slug slime.

I find it almost poetic, this living, organic connection between him and his little objects.

I have to remember that, it might be useful for a future guerrilla marketing idea.

A Millennium Falcon Lego set the size of a fat Beagle. A series of spiky wax middle fingers from Candle Hand. A red umarell (old man) from Superstuff. A box set of all the seasons of Lost, weighing at least two kilos.

My children, he says — said.

Weapons, I think.

Objects endowed with many pointed and blunt parts.

Design in the service of revenge.

I leave the fishless aquarium and head to the toilet. The stink of Gianluca’s piss still hangs in the air, that unmistakable sour smell of urine mixed with milk and blueberries. I try to wash my hands: the neutral soap fights poorly against the scent but at least takes away the more obvious traces.

Under the flickering neon light I touch up my lipstick and fix my bangs. I look at my reflection: I’ve never seen myself so beautiful.

Back in the room, I bend over my blood-spattered Mac and start closing the trillions of open work tabs.

Click-click-click.Click-click-click.Click-click-click.

My laptop explodes in a hail of Slack notifications and I jump to my feet, as if my body had to obey a Pavlovian reflex. I let the creepy Mickey Mouse fall, and it lands with a thud on Gianluca’s potato nose.

I approach the desk, lean over the screen and check the app: three notifications, three new messages addressed to me. My fingers slip on the trackpad as I scroll through the chats and channels. My blood-covered fingers slide slippery over the trackpad as I scroll through the various chats and channels.

There he is: Fabio. The other boss.

The other sexy-cool CEO.

He tagged me in the workspace-management channel.

@martinamel Guys, reminder that today we have clients in the office.

@martinamel Less noise, please.

@martinamel We can hear you all the way over here, not cool. We’ll talk later.

I type my reply and hit send.

@fabBoss Sorry, we’re done. Actually, I’ll come join you.

My gaze immediately falls on the big, heavy, pointed Lego Millennium Falcon.

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Creepy Mickey Mouse - L'Idiot