Fiftyish, the man attired in Prada enters a room. Sly. Furtive. Behind him—or ahead of him—slightly ominous music. Piano tinkles sprinkle his walk. Music is place-agnostic. It’s just there. He adjusts his jacket buttons. A young woman, dark hair, sits on the floor, looking serious. We can only guess it has something to do with the Prada man. She turns her head slowly to the left. Consider the significance. Is she looking at him? Or merely turning her head? Wait. The man has changed clothes. He is wearing something else, a fawn overcoat, perhaps in worsted wool. Could he ...? But no, there is a younger man. He doesn’t smile. Is it because he can’t? Or chooses not to, chooses instead to mirror the grim seriousness of the man in the overcoat? His eyes betray nothing; he wears sunglasses. Another young man sits on the floor, his Asian features bundled inside a black-and-white-checked scarf. The sinister Prada man has changed clothes again. Deft. Daft. A denim shirt over denim pants. He steps past a door. He approaches a window. He has changed again. A dark suit, now. Backlit, so nobody can see his aspirational taste. He decides to sit his bespoke butt on the rim of a clawfoot bathtub, and set his valise on the floor. He reflects awhile on a matter weighty, perhaps involving one or the other of the younger, curiously indifferent persons in his orbit.

Sun spills through an undraped window behind him, illuminating the space but penetrating not an inch beneath the custom-cut veneer of the Prada guy. He looks grim. Or is that pain, inflicted by the rim of the tub beneath his butt? You imagine that his wife has just told him she wants him to leave, get a real job, put something in the valise. Paper, for Pete’s sake. And while you’re at it, shave, dammit—shave that ridiculous un-beard thing off. You look like a ... ruffian. Razors are cheap! Soap is cheap! You can afford a shave, for God’s sake. You’re a fucking Prada model. He sits on the tub, looking for all the world like he cares. About his thoughts. And thinks. About his cares. For all that, his face leaks not a hint of emotion. He is a Prada man. Cool as the freezer drawer of outer space. Cool as ice made from ice. Cool as haute sauce.

Bio: Stuart Watson