[fic] tell me the story of how you ended up here
pg. au. eames and arthur both suffer from a fall. they meet in a hospital.
set in the late 1920s, inspired by cold war kid's hospital beds and The Fall
He opens his eyes. The glaring lights practically blind him. He has a massive headache. His hand shoots up to rub at his throbbing temple. There are bandages around his head. He can’t even think straight due to the pain.
“Oh, you’re finally awake,” a voice next to him drawls. He turns to see a man in a bed a few feet away. The man’s left arm is in a cast.
He looks around to see medical equipment. The walls are gray and it smells like disinfectant.
He realizes that he’s in a hospital.
“How are you feeling, then?” the man questions. His brain finally recognizes that this man has a British accent. He notices that the Brit’s foot is being held up, the man’s entire leg is in a cast.
He suddenly begins to panic.
How did he get here?
The room seems to be getting narrower and narrower. He’s trying to not show his distress, but he feels like he can’t breathe even though he is taking in large gulps of air.
The Englishman beckons over a nurse from the other side of the room. She comes over and lays a cool hand on his forehead. He instantly feels calmer, even though he still has no idea what’s going on.
“There, there Arthur. Everything is going to be alright,” she says in soothing tones.
That’s right. His name is Arthur. He works on his family’s orange farm in California, right outside of Los Angeles.
The nurse hurries off to fetch a doctor.
Arthur looks down at himself. His body is wrapped tightly in a white blanket.
“They didn’t know if you were going to wake up or not. You’ve been out for almost a week. Apparently you took a nasty spill and hit your head on the way down. I too suffered some damage from a bad fall,” the British man motions to his leg with his good arm.
Arthur surmises that he must’ve fallen while picking some oranges. The ladders that he used while working went up pretty high. Arthur liked climbing up to the top rung to get the oranges that were growing at top of the tree.
His mother always told him not to do it, “Leave those for the hired hands to get at.”
She was afraid of heights and maybe now Arthur would be too.
“My name is Eames by the way,” the man next to him looks over expectantly at Arthur, waiting for some form of acknowledgement or greeting.
Arthur looks away and scratches at his chest. His head still hurts. Arthur reaches up to gingerly touch the gauze encircling his head.
Eames gives a dramatic sigh, “Great, I’m the one that gets stuck with a mute.”
//
Eames is an actor. His broken leg and arm are due to a botched stunt for his most recent film. He had fallen from a horse.
“Horses and I have never gotten along. I knew that damn bugger was out to get me,” Eames states with great irritation.
Eames goes on and on about the movie. It’s a cowboy picture, one of those new talkies that Arthur has heard about.
Arthur frankly doesn’t care about the movies all that much. Working on the farm, he never has any extra time to journey into the city to go to the cinema. His family doesn’t have the money to waste on such a luxury anyway.
“I’m not even from America and I’m playing a cowboy,” Eames chuckles, “Though, I must say that my American accent is quite good.”
Eames proceeds to talk with a Western twang for the next five minutes. Arthur won’t admit it, but Eames’ imitation is actually pretty decent.
//
The first time Arthur says something to Eames, it’s to tell him to stop talking. Eames is babbling on incessantly about the first time he got kicked out of school back in England. Eames looks shocked when he realizes that there are words coming out of Arthur’s mouth.
“Excuse me?” Eames says, cupping a hand around his ear closest to Arthur.
“I said be quiet,” Arthur can’t talk above a raspy whisper. His voice is weak due to the fact that he has neglected to use it for the last few days.
“So you do talk!” Eames exclaims loudly. A man across the room shushes Eames. Arthur is grateful. He still can’t handle loud noises.
“I thought for certain your tumble knocked the words right out of you,” Eames utters, attempting to be a bit quieter. He leans over towards Arthur as far as he possibly can which isn’t very far at all considering his leg is locked in place by the contraption that is holding it up.
“That’s a stupid thing to think,” Arthur murmurs, rolling his eyes, refusing to look over at Eames.
Mustering up all of his strength, Arthur gets up from his bed. His head hurts and he feels woozy, but he’s determined to make it out of the room if only to get away from the bothersome Brit. And maybe also to make Eames jealous of his mobility. Eames is constantly complaining about his inability to move about.
Arthur takes slow, deliberate steps and finally reaches the door. He looks back to see that Eames is glaring at him. Arthur turns the corner and walks past some nurses, towards the door that leads outside.
//
The day that Eames gets the cast on his arm removed, Arthur receives a letter from his family.
Arthur,
We hear that you have woken up. We expect that you will be back as soon as you have recovered.
It’s not signed, but Arthur recognizes his father’s messy scrawl. Besides, his mother never learned how to write.
Arthur tries to crumble the paper. It’s hard for him to do this because he is exhausted. His head has been bothering him a great deal lately and he hasn’t been able to get a lot of sleep. Arthur gets frustrated and throws the partially balled up letter across the room.
Arthur is not planning on returning to the farm very soon. He feels a little selfish for deciding this, but he thinks he deserves a rest. Arthur can’t remember a period over the past few years when he was able to have some time for himself.
“What was that all about?” Eames questions, his eyes darting over to Arthur. Arthur notices that it’s taking Eames a great amount of effort to close his newly released hand into a fist.
“It’s none of your concern.” Arthur is not in the mood for Eames’ prying inquiries. Arthur slides from the bed and goes to leave.
“Arthur, don’t go now. I get so bored when I’m left here all by myself. You’re my only friend in the room. No one else will listen to my stories,” Eames sounds genuinely sad. But Eames’ job involves him acting genuine when he’s really not. Arthur can’t tell if he is putting on a show.
“I’m not your friend,” Arthur huffs. Arthur slips back under the sheets. He wasn't actually going to go anywhere. It was rainy outside.
“Whatever you say, my dear.”
Arthur shoots Eames a look, but Eames just pretends he doesn’t see it as he starts telling Arthur about his first night in Hollywood. It’s the kind of tale Arthur wouldn’t want to relate back to his mother.
//
Eames’ foot is doing very well. Arthur hears the doctor say this during his most recent visit. The doctor comes over to Arthur’s bed next. He pokes and prods at Arthur’s head.
“Your head will be healed up before you know it,” the doctor states. The doctor exits the room and comes back a few minutes later with a wheelchair.
“Nurse Margaret has agreed to take you outside for a bit, Mr. Eames.” Eames perks up when the doctor says this.
“Could I take him out?”Arthur asks. Eames can’t hide the surprise on his face. Arthur volunteers because he is bored and takes any chance he can to leave the room. Also he may be planning to accidently wheel Eames down the hill behind the main building.
The doctor agrees, unaware of Arthur’s motives.
“Just make sure to keep his foot propped up,” the doctor shows Arthur how to position the chair so that Eames broken leg will stay elevated.
“And don’t go anywhere near that slope behind the main building,” the doctor warns. Eames looks relieved. Arthur wonders if this doctor has the ability to read minds.
//
Arthur ends up pushing Eames all over the premises, being sure to avoid the pathway that leads to behind the main building. He doesn’t want to be implicated in anything that has to do with Eames’ safety.
He wheels Eames up to a bench placed in front a fountain on the edge of the hospital property. Arthur plops down on the bench next to Eames. He’s tired. Eames is not a small person, not the ideal size for pushing around in Arthur’s current state.
The two of them sit there in silence until Eames says, “So you know a whole lot about me, but I know nothing about you. Arthur please do tell me something about yourself.”
Arthur takes a deep breath. He then launches into how he had wanted to go away to college, but his father wouldn’t let him. How they had fought and fought but in the end his father had won because Arthur didn’t have enough of his own money to put himself through school. Arthur tries to convey how much he truly resents his father for making him stay and work on that damn orange farm. Arthur doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life picking oranges and boxing them up to be sent to cities that he will never be able to see.
And he is happy that he fell because he knows that his father is angry because he won’t able to work for some time due to his injury. The fall is an unplanned way to exact some sort of revenge on his father.
After Arthur finishes the tirade against his father, he quickly apologizes. Eames doesn’t want to hear about a poor farmer’s hard life. Eames is a rich actor who will never have to deal with the difficulties Arthur faces on a daily basis.
“No need to be sorry. I never had a good relationship with my father either,” states Eames, giving Arthur a sad, knowing smile. This makes Arthur believe that maybe he and Eames aren’t so different from one another in some respects.
In that moment, Arthur decides that even though Eames has an annoying knack for talking too much, he also seems to be good listener at times.
//
Eames’ cast comes off his leg at last.
“Good riddance,” Eames says as the doctor takes the broken cast out of the room, “I’ve had that thing on for almost 7 weeks.”
Arthur takes Eames out in the wheelchair. It’s a beautiful summer day, not too hot. Eames claims it’s because God is rejoicing with him now that his cast is finally off.
“I’m sure that’s why,” Arthur chuckles, Eames’ good mood is affecting his own.
Once they are back inside, Eames asks to borrow a chess set that belongs to a man across the room. They sit on Eames’ bed and Eames teaches Arthur how to play chess. Pretty soon, Arthur is able to beat Eames.
“I hope you know that just like a true gentleman would, I am letting you win,” Eames says after Arthur wins for the 5th time in a row.
“A true gentleman, indeed,” Arthur acknowledges, following his next triumph over Eames. Eames admits defeat and returns the set.
With a flourish of his hands, Eames produces an apple and an orange out of nowhere.
"An afternoon snack," Eames says with a wink.
He hands the apple to Arthur. Eames knows that Arthur doesn’t like the taste of oranges anymore.
//
A week after Eames’ cast comes off, Arthur’s mother and older sister come to retrieve him from the hospital.
“You’re father thinks you’ve spent enough time here. He needs you back,” his mother says.
Eames walks into the room. Actually he limps into the room, because Eames’ leg is very weak from disuse. He eyes Arthur’s mother and sister, then looks to Arthur. Arthur’s sister is stealing glances at Eames as he makes his way over to Arthur.
“Mother, this is Mr. Eames,” Arthur introduces Eames, “He’s in the movies.”
Arthur’s sister gasps, she mouths the words “movie star.”
“Gather up anything you need to bring back with you. We’ll be waiting out by the truck.” Arthur’s mother and sister make their way outside and his sister takes one last glance over her shoulder at Eames.
Arthur suddenly feels embarrassed. Eames would probably be picked up in a fancy car once he was ready to leave the hospital and go back to Hollywood.
“Of course, you’re leaving when I can finally hobble about with you.” Arthur can tell that Eames is disappointed. He doesn’t know what to say, he can’t meet Eames’ eyes.
“Well, I guess I’ll come out with it since you won’t.” Eames walks closer to Arthur with great difficulty. His arms reach around to encircle Arthur. Eames is hugging him.
“I’ll miss you,” Eames says quietly into Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur’s stomach feels strange, all knotted up from the thoughts running through his head. They mostly have to do with how Arthur knows he will probably never see Eames again.
Even though it may be a strange one, Arthur has developed a bond with Eames.
When Eames lets go of him, Arthur quickly walks towards the door. He turns around to face Eames one last time. Eames gives him a small smile.
“Goodbye, Mr. Eames,” Arthur’s voice breaks with the finality of it all.
Arthur wipes at his face as he steps outside into the bright daylight. He’s not crying. Arthur never cries.
//
Arthur comes back to the house after a long day in the fields. It’s been four months since he’s come back from the hospital.
He hears his sister talking excitedly in the kitchen.
“When I went into the city today I saw that they are playing one of Mr.Eames’ films at the theater!”
“Mr. Eames?” Arthur hears his father question.
“Yes! Arthur was in the same room as him when he was staying at the hospital!”
As soon as Arthur steps into the kitchen, his sister repeats the news to him.
“Are you going to see it?” she asks him eagerly.
“Maybe,” Arthur says trying to appear as if he doesn’t care.
//
The next day, Arthur stays in bed until he hears his father leave the house. Arthur goes downstairs to tell his mother he isn’t feeling well, that his head is bothering him. He won’t be working today. His mother just nods. Arthur goes back to his room and reaches under his bed for the old shoe where he keeps what little money he has. He puts just enough change for a movie in his back pocket.
His mother is sitting on the porch knitting when Arthur walks out the front door and goes over to the truck. She doesn’t ask him where he’s going.
It takes Arthur a while to get into the city. He parks the truck on the main street. Once he gets out he asks a passerby where the theater is. The person points vaguely to somewhere down the street. Arthur walks until he happens upon it. There’s a drawn poster on the outside. Arthur immediately recognizes Eames. He’s wearing a cowboy hat. A woman is clinging to his side.
Arthur buys a ticket at the booth and heads inside. Luckily the movie is just about to start. He settles himself down in a seat. There aren’t many people in the theater, it’s one o’ clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday.
The lights dim and the opening credits roll. The movie begins.
Arthur smiles when he sees the familiar face up on the screen and hears Eames’ Western accent.
Eames, the Brit, plays a better American cowboy than Arthur ever could.
set in the late 1920s, inspired by cold war kid's hospital beds and The Fall
He opens his eyes. The glaring lights practically blind him. He has a massive headache. His hand shoots up to rub at his throbbing temple. There are bandages around his head. He can’t even think straight due to the pain.
“Oh, you’re finally awake,” a voice next to him drawls. He turns to see a man in a bed a few feet away. The man’s left arm is in a cast.
He looks around to see medical equipment. The walls are gray and it smells like disinfectant.
He realizes that he’s in a hospital.
“How are you feeling, then?” the man questions. His brain finally recognizes that this man has a British accent. He notices that the Brit’s foot is being held up, the man’s entire leg is in a cast.
He suddenly begins to panic.
How did he get here?
The room seems to be getting narrower and narrower. He’s trying to not show his distress, but he feels like he can’t breathe even though he is taking in large gulps of air.
The Englishman beckons over a nurse from the other side of the room. She comes over and lays a cool hand on his forehead. He instantly feels calmer, even though he still has no idea what’s going on.
“There, there Arthur. Everything is going to be alright,” she says in soothing tones.
That’s right. His name is Arthur. He works on his family’s orange farm in California, right outside of Los Angeles.
The nurse hurries off to fetch a doctor.
Arthur looks down at himself. His body is wrapped tightly in a white blanket.
“They didn’t know if you were going to wake up or not. You’ve been out for almost a week. Apparently you took a nasty spill and hit your head on the way down. I too suffered some damage from a bad fall,” the British man motions to his leg with his good arm.
Arthur surmises that he must’ve fallen while picking some oranges. The ladders that he used while working went up pretty high. Arthur liked climbing up to the top rung to get the oranges that were growing at top of the tree.
His mother always told him not to do it, “Leave those for the hired hands to get at.”
She was afraid of heights and maybe now Arthur would be too.
“My name is Eames by the way,” the man next to him looks over expectantly at Arthur, waiting for some form of acknowledgement or greeting.
Arthur looks away and scratches at his chest. His head still hurts. Arthur reaches up to gingerly touch the gauze encircling his head.
Eames gives a dramatic sigh, “Great, I’m the one that gets stuck with a mute.”
//
Eames is an actor. His broken leg and arm are due to a botched stunt for his most recent film. He had fallen from a horse.
“Horses and I have never gotten along. I knew that damn bugger was out to get me,” Eames states with great irritation.
Eames goes on and on about the movie. It’s a cowboy picture, one of those new talkies that Arthur has heard about.
Arthur frankly doesn’t care about the movies all that much. Working on the farm, he never has any extra time to journey into the city to go to the cinema. His family doesn’t have the money to waste on such a luxury anyway.
“I’m not even from America and I’m playing a cowboy,” Eames chuckles, “Though, I must say that my American accent is quite good.”
Eames proceeds to talk with a Western twang for the next five minutes. Arthur won’t admit it, but Eames’ imitation is actually pretty decent.
//
The first time Arthur says something to Eames, it’s to tell him to stop talking. Eames is babbling on incessantly about the first time he got kicked out of school back in England. Eames looks shocked when he realizes that there are words coming out of Arthur’s mouth.
“Excuse me?” Eames says, cupping a hand around his ear closest to Arthur.
“I said be quiet,” Arthur can’t talk above a raspy whisper. His voice is weak due to the fact that he has neglected to use it for the last few days.
“So you do talk!” Eames exclaims loudly. A man across the room shushes Eames. Arthur is grateful. He still can’t handle loud noises.
“I thought for certain your tumble knocked the words right out of you,” Eames utters, attempting to be a bit quieter. He leans over towards Arthur as far as he possibly can which isn’t very far at all considering his leg is locked in place by the contraption that is holding it up.
“That’s a stupid thing to think,” Arthur murmurs, rolling his eyes, refusing to look over at Eames.
Mustering up all of his strength, Arthur gets up from his bed. His head hurts and he feels woozy, but he’s determined to make it out of the room if only to get away from the bothersome Brit. And maybe also to make Eames jealous of his mobility. Eames is constantly complaining about his inability to move about.
Arthur takes slow, deliberate steps and finally reaches the door. He looks back to see that Eames is glaring at him. Arthur turns the corner and walks past some nurses, towards the door that leads outside.
//
The day that Eames gets the cast on his arm removed, Arthur receives a letter from his family.
Arthur,
We hear that you have woken up. We expect that you will be back as soon as you have recovered.
It’s not signed, but Arthur recognizes his father’s messy scrawl. Besides, his mother never learned how to write.
Arthur tries to crumble the paper. It’s hard for him to do this because he is exhausted. His head has been bothering him a great deal lately and he hasn’t been able to get a lot of sleep. Arthur gets frustrated and throws the partially balled up letter across the room.
Arthur is not planning on returning to the farm very soon. He feels a little selfish for deciding this, but he thinks he deserves a rest. Arthur can’t remember a period over the past few years when he was able to have some time for himself.
“What was that all about?” Eames questions, his eyes darting over to Arthur. Arthur notices that it’s taking Eames a great amount of effort to close his newly released hand into a fist.
“It’s none of your concern.” Arthur is not in the mood for Eames’ prying inquiries. Arthur slides from the bed and goes to leave.
“Arthur, don’t go now. I get so bored when I’m left here all by myself. You’re my only friend in the room. No one else will listen to my stories,” Eames sounds genuinely sad. But Eames’ job involves him acting genuine when he’s really not. Arthur can’t tell if he is putting on a show.
“I’m not your friend,” Arthur huffs. Arthur slips back under the sheets. He wasn't actually going to go anywhere. It was rainy outside.
“Whatever you say, my dear.”
Arthur shoots Eames a look, but Eames just pretends he doesn’t see it as he starts telling Arthur about his first night in Hollywood. It’s the kind of tale Arthur wouldn’t want to relate back to his mother.
//
Eames’ foot is doing very well. Arthur hears the doctor say this during his most recent visit. The doctor comes over to Arthur’s bed next. He pokes and prods at Arthur’s head.
“Your head will be healed up before you know it,” the doctor states. The doctor exits the room and comes back a few minutes later with a wheelchair.
“Nurse Margaret has agreed to take you outside for a bit, Mr. Eames.” Eames perks up when the doctor says this.
“Could I take him out?”Arthur asks. Eames can’t hide the surprise on his face. Arthur volunteers because he is bored and takes any chance he can to leave the room. Also he may be planning to accidently wheel Eames down the hill behind the main building.
The doctor agrees, unaware of Arthur’s motives.
“Just make sure to keep his foot propped up,” the doctor shows Arthur how to position the chair so that Eames broken leg will stay elevated.
“And don’t go anywhere near that slope behind the main building,” the doctor warns. Eames looks relieved. Arthur wonders if this doctor has the ability to read minds.
//
Arthur ends up pushing Eames all over the premises, being sure to avoid the pathway that leads to behind the main building. He doesn’t want to be implicated in anything that has to do with Eames’ safety.
He wheels Eames up to a bench placed in front a fountain on the edge of the hospital property. Arthur plops down on the bench next to Eames. He’s tired. Eames is not a small person, not the ideal size for pushing around in Arthur’s current state.
The two of them sit there in silence until Eames says, “So you know a whole lot about me, but I know nothing about you. Arthur please do tell me something about yourself.”
Arthur takes a deep breath. He then launches into how he had wanted to go away to college, but his father wouldn’t let him. How they had fought and fought but in the end his father had won because Arthur didn’t have enough of his own money to put himself through school. Arthur tries to convey how much he truly resents his father for making him stay and work on that damn orange farm. Arthur doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life picking oranges and boxing them up to be sent to cities that he will never be able to see.
And he is happy that he fell because he knows that his father is angry because he won’t able to work for some time due to his injury. The fall is an unplanned way to exact some sort of revenge on his father.
After Arthur finishes the tirade against his father, he quickly apologizes. Eames doesn’t want to hear about a poor farmer’s hard life. Eames is a rich actor who will never have to deal with the difficulties Arthur faces on a daily basis.
“No need to be sorry. I never had a good relationship with my father either,” states Eames, giving Arthur a sad, knowing smile. This makes Arthur believe that maybe he and Eames aren’t so different from one another in some respects.
In that moment, Arthur decides that even though Eames has an annoying knack for talking too much, he also seems to be good listener at times.
//
Eames’ cast comes off his leg at last.
“Good riddance,” Eames says as the doctor takes the broken cast out of the room, “I’ve had that thing on for almost 7 weeks.”
Arthur takes Eames out in the wheelchair. It’s a beautiful summer day, not too hot. Eames claims it’s because God is rejoicing with him now that his cast is finally off.
“I’m sure that’s why,” Arthur chuckles, Eames’ good mood is affecting his own.
Once they are back inside, Eames asks to borrow a chess set that belongs to a man across the room. They sit on Eames’ bed and Eames teaches Arthur how to play chess. Pretty soon, Arthur is able to beat Eames.
“I hope you know that just like a true gentleman would, I am letting you win,” Eames says after Arthur wins for the 5th time in a row.
“A true gentleman, indeed,” Arthur acknowledges, following his next triumph over Eames. Eames admits defeat and returns the set.
With a flourish of his hands, Eames produces an apple and an orange out of nowhere.
"An afternoon snack," Eames says with a wink.
He hands the apple to Arthur. Eames knows that Arthur doesn’t like the taste of oranges anymore.
//
A week after Eames’ cast comes off, Arthur’s mother and older sister come to retrieve him from the hospital.
“You’re father thinks you’ve spent enough time here. He needs you back,” his mother says.
Eames walks into the room. Actually he limps into the room, because Eames’ leg is very weak from disuse. He eyes Arthur’s mother and sister, then looks to Arthur. Arthur’s sister is stealing glances at Eames as he makes his way over to Arthur.
“Mother, this is Mr. Eames,” Arthur introduces Eames, “He’s in the movies.”
Arthur’s sister gasps, she mouths the words “movie star.”
“Gather up anything you need to bring back with you. We’ll be waiting out by the truck.” Arthur’s mother and sister make their way outside and his sister takes one last glance over her shoulder at Eames.
Arthur suddenly feels embarrassed. Eames would probably be picked up in a fancy car once he was ready to leave the hospital and go back to Hollywood.
“Of course, you’re leaving when I can finally hobble about with you.” Arthur can tell that Eames is disappointed. He doesn’t know what to say, he can’t meet Eames’ eyes.
“Well, I guess I’ll come out with it since you won’t.” Eames walks closer to Arthur with great difficulty. His arms reach around to encircle Arthur. Eames is hugging him.
“I’ll miss you,” Eames says quietly into Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur’s stomach feels strange, all knotted up from the thoughts running through his head. They mostly have to do with how Arthur knows he will probably never see Eames again.
Even though it may be a strange one, Arthur has developed a bond with Eames.
When Eames lets go of him, Arthur quickly walks towards the door. He turns around to face Eames one last time. Eames gives him a small smile.
“Goodbye, Mr. Eames,” Arthur’s voice breaks with the finality of it all.
Arthur wipes at his face as he steps outside into the bright daylight. He’s not crying. Arthur never cries.
//
Arthur comes back to the house after a long day in the fields. It’s been four months since he’s come back from the hospital.
He hears his sister talking excitedly in the kitchen.
“When I went into the city today I saw that they are playing one of Mr.Eames’ films at the theater!”
“Mr. Eames?” Arthur hears his father question.
“Yes! Arthur was in the same room as him when he was staying at the hospital!”
As soon as Arthur steps into the kitchen, his sister repeats the news to him.
“Are you going to see it?” she asks him eagerly.
“Maybe,” Arthur says trying to appear as if he doesn’t care.
//
The next day, Arthur stays in bed until he hears his father leave the house. Arthur goes downstairs to tell his mother he isn’t feeling well, that his head is bothering him. He won’t be working today. His mother just nods. Arthur goes back to his room and reaches under his bed for the old shoe where he keeps what little money he has. He puts just enough change for a movie in his back pocket.
His mother is sitting on the porch knitting when Arthur walks out the front door and goes over to the truck. She doesn’t ask him where he’s going.
It takes Arthur a while to get into the city. He parks the truck on the main street. Once he gets out he asks a passerby where the theater is. The person points vaguely to somewhere down the street. Arthur walks until he happens upon it. There’s a drawn poster on the outside. Arthur immediately recognizes Eames. He’s wearing a cowboy hat. A woman is clinging to his side.
Arthur buys a ticket at the booth and heads inside. Luckily the movie is just about to start. He settles himself down in a seat. There aren’t many people in the theater, it’s one o’ clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday.
The lights dim and the opening credits roll. The movie begins.
Arthur smiles when he sees the familiar face up on the screen and hears Eames’ Western accent.
Eames, the Brit, plays a better American cowboy than Arthur ever could.