‘The Semi-Fictional Character of the Day’ is a joint, one-month project by Louiza Mallouri and Constantinos Xenofontos. Constantinos will be sketching a semi-fictional figure every day, and Louiza will be writing an accompanying storyline, as inspired by that character. The aim of this project is to explore the way two semiotic systems, the visual and the linguistic, interact and complement each other to tell a story.
That was one of my first deliveries. I made sure I got the address right and knocked on the door. I waited for a while and a man eventually answered: blank stare, mouth half open and arms crossed. ‘Hey, your delivery is here. That would be 16.99.’ He just stood there expressionless. ‘Erm….For the pizza you ordered?’ Silence for a few minutes. Then suddenly, as if he had just seen me, he acknowledged my presence, ‘Hey, dude what’s up? Let me get that for you. Come in.’ It was freezing outside so I followed him in. As soon as I stepped in, I was overpowered by the smell: that dude was high, so was everyone in the room. A couple of people were half sleeping, some were staring at the TV, bongs everywhere. He zoned out again, so I had to remind him, ‘The pizza? 16.99.’ ‘Ah, yeah dude…’ He took the money out of the wallet of a person who was lying flat on the floor. ‘Thanks, man!’ I grabbed the money and left as fast as I could, but it was too late. Later that night, at home, my girlfriend started to freak out, ‘What’s that smell? Did you..’