A Source of Little Visible Delight (parts 11-12)
Title: A Source of Little Visible Delight (parts 11-12)
Characters: Arthur, Eames, OCs
Pairing: pre-slash Arthur/Eames
Word Count: 2500
Rating: PG
Summary: Arthur attempts to go on vacation. Mild angst and much introspection ensues. It’s an Arthur character study and appreciation fic!
Originally posted on the kink meme in 12 parts as a response to sho_no_tabi ’s awesome prompt.
~
Arthur doesn’t have to be in Mexico City for another couple of weeks. So he goes on vacation.
He takes the train from Genoa to Milan. Per Cadence’s insistence. He’s under strict orders from her to buy himself some new clothes. Upon delivering his luggage to him in the hospital, she’d said, “You need to invest in some news threads, man. Your shit is worn the fuck out.”
She’s right. Constant travel has not done wonders for the contents of his wardrobe. He hasn’t purchased anything for himself in over a year. He suspects it’s less to do with his being busy and more a feeble act of rebellion. Something to do with his well-dressed father, the contrite architect-cum-tailor. An act akin to him growing his hair out after leaving the military. But part of it is just good old-fashioned middle-class, white male guilt at spending too much money on himself. Arthur still winces every time he spends more than fifty dollars on a meal.
But the instant he walks into the Ermenegildo Zegna flagship store at Via Montenapoleone 27/E, an unexpected feeling of calm washes over him. The warm smell of leather and pressed wool. Concrete walls absorbing and polished tile floors reflecting the light. He gets fitted for a suit and thinks of the first time his father took his measurements. The occasion had been his grandmother’s funeral. Arthur had been fourteen years old at the time. He had rolled his eyes and huffed in embarrassment as his father measured his inseam.
The mood is broken somewhat when the tailor taps Arthur on the lower back and says, “Stand up straighter please.” Arthur responds without flinching, “I got shot in the leg a couple of weeks ago. This is about as straight as I’m going to get. Sorry.” The tailor simply frowns thoughtfully without taking his eyes off his tape measure.
He takes a train from Milan to Venice. He’s on his way back to his hotel from the Peggy Guggenheim Museum when gets lost in a high-walled maze of crumbling buildings and canals. For two hours he wanders. His leg begins to throb, and he wonders how anyone can enjoy a city in which one never knows which direction they’re heading. Then he emerges from a dark alleyway and his breath catches.
He’s at the head of a canal, mere feet from open water that’s nearly level with the bricks on which he stands. It creates the illusion that he could step off the bricks and continue walking over the surface of the water, cross it to the other side of the canal. He turns to his right to see the copper spire of St. Mark’s Campanile piercing the sky. Directly next to him, the dome of the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute pops up out of nowhere like some Renaissance-era circus tent. He sits on the steps of the church and watches as the setting sun turns the stone walls all around him pale pink.
He takes a train to Croatia. Somewhere in between Venice and Zagreb, he finally grows a pair and sends some feelers out for Eames. No one that he speaks to has heard from him directly in a couple of months. So now it’s just a waiting game. Allowing the word that Arthur’s looking for him to make its way across the unofficial dreamsharing phone chain.
In Croatia, Arthur wanders white stone towns nestled in green coastal hills. He sits on a pebbled beach and stares out at the Adriatic. It’s bluer than he imagined it would be. In fact, the entire country surprises him. Nothing about former Soviet satellite countries ever screamed BEAUTIFUL to Arthur.
He shucks off his Italian leather boots, strips off his shirt and his trousers. He lays on the beach in nothing but his briefs, the warm pebbles poking into his back. He’s not going to invest in swim trunks, because he has no intention of going in the water. Arthur’s a horrible swimmer. He only learnt how to swim a couple of years ago. The tourists on the beach don’t need their vacations ruined by the sight of him flailing around in the water like a cat dropped into a bathtub.
He takes a train from Dubrovnik to Sarajevo. He spends a few days getting his mind blown by a city that, growing up, he only ever associated with war and bloodshed. He walks over the bridge where Franz Ferdinand was killed. He gets blotto three nights in a row at the same bar and becomes best friends with a Ukrainian drag queen. He’s deep in conversation with her on the third night when his phone rings. He picks it up to see the caller ID displaying an unfamiliar series of numbers. He lets it ring through to voicemail. He’s on vacation , goddammit.
He listens to the message a couple of hours later while he’s in the toilet, his dick in one hand and his phone in the other, his forehead pressed up against the cold tile wall in front of him. It takes him a couple of listens before he realizes what he’s hearing. It’s not really a proper voicemail. It’s two people arguing loudly in a language that he doesn’t understand. And one of them is speaking in a familiar, aggressive rumble that sends a rush of blood straight to Arthur’s cock. Eames.
Arthur calls the number back, but it just keep ringing and ringing. Eames probably called him from a pay phone. He’ll just have to wait for him to call back. Arthur dislikes being made to wait.
He takes a train from Sarajevo to Athens. Arthur was in Athens once a year ago, assisting Massoud with an extraction/therapy session for an aging member of the Hellenic Parliament. He didn’t see the city then. He just sat in his hotel room, on his computer for three days. Now he walks to the top of Lycabettus hill, the highest hill in Athens, ignoring the dull ache in his leg. Once at the top, he stands next to a small, whitewashed church and looks down at the roof of the Parthenon. From this height, it looks like a model.
He’s hobbling his way back down a seemingly-endless series of stone steps when his phone rings. He picks it up to look at the caller ID. He’s pretty sure it’s the same number that Eames called him from a couple of days ago. He inhales and exhales deeply and picks it up. “Hello?”
A long pause. And then a deep voice murmurs his name. “Arthur?”
Arthur is glad that he’s sitting down because the sound of Eames speaking his name after three years of buildup would have been enough to knock him right on his ass. The only thing he can think to say is, “Eames?”
Another pause. And then, “Christ, Arthur... How long has it been?” He asks as if he honestly doesn’t remember.
Arthur’s jaw clenches. Most people would express disappointment at being forgotten about. Arthur calls bullshit. “You don’t fool me, Eames. You know exactly how long it’s been.”
Eames confesses, “Three years.”
“Three years.” Arthur confirms.
Yet another pause on the other end of the line. Arthur remembers Eames being a much more adept conversationalist. But Arthur understands how faulty human memory can be.
At last, Eames speaks, and his tone makes Arthur’s stomach clench. “There were times,” Eames mumbles, “when I was convinced that I had dreamt the whole thing.”
Arthur has heard this kind of talk from people who have spent too much time in dreams. No, he thinks, don’t tell me it’s gotten you. “Eames. Eames, are you alright?”
Eames continues. “And then I think of that lovely pair of suede Oxfords that I used to wear all the time. And I wonder why I can’t find them in my closet...”
The clouds over Arthur’s visage part, and a giant grin spreads across his face.
“...And then I remember that I don’t have them anymore. Because you got sick all over them, and I had to toss them.”
He throws his head back and laughs. He remembers that night. It was the night that Eames quoted Shirley Jackson to him. The night they got hammered on the beach.
“Don’t laugh at me, you bastard. Not only did you ruin my footwear, but you put me off McDonald’s fries for life. All because you thought it would be a good idea to mix three tumblers full of scotch and a fourteen-piece chicken McNugget meal.”
“I regret nothing. It was worth it for the look on your face. And what was it you said? ‘These are the first pair of shoes I bought with my own money.’”
Eames is laughing now. A familiar deep chuckle that warms the tips of Arthur’s fingers and his toes. “Christ, I was a spoilt brat, wasn’t I?” A thoughtful pause. “I can’t believe it’s only been three years,” he says in a wistful tone. “Feels like it’s been ages. How is it that I’ve aged so much in just three years?”
Arthur nods in agreement. “I know the feeling.”
“I suppose you would, wouldn’t you?” Arthur can hear Eames nibbling on something. Could either be a snack of some sort or his own fingernails. “I hear you’re a bit of a big shot these days. The central nervous system of the dreamsharing community. How exactly did that come about?”
Arthur sighs heavily. “I honestly don’t know. It just sort of happened.”
Eames huffs in amusement. His voice drips with sarcasm when he says, “Well, as long as it makes you happy...”
“Whether or not it makes me happy is besides the point. Somebody’s gotta do it.”
“Spoken like a true leader.”
“I’m not a leader, Eames.”
“No. No, you’re not, are you? What you contribute is rather more important than leadership. You are...” Eames chews and thinks. And when he speaks he does so absently. As if only partially invested in the words coming out of his mouth. “What you do for dreamsharing ‘resembles the eternal rocks beneath - a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”
Eames’ words throw Arthur for a loop momentarily. They always do. Uncanny insight spoken as if it’s not even worth a second thought. Eames has always been utterly unimpressed by his own intelligence. It’s part of what makes him so disarming.
“Arthur? You still there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”
Eames chuckles. “One would think you’d never received a compliment before...”
It takes Arthur a moment to recover. “Actually, I was trying to think of what famous author would best describe you.”
“Mmm. Bukowski perhaps? Or Hunter S. Thompson. Hemingway, even. Seeing as he spent so much time here.”
“So you’re in Spain. Are you on a job?”
“No. I’m standing outside A Taste of Home. Trying to figure out how easy it would be to break in. They don’t open for another...” Arthur can almost hear the jangle of Eames’s pocket watch chain. “...three hours, and I’m desperate for some cheese and onion crisps.”
“You’re drunk, aren’t you?”
“Of course not. I was drunk hours ago. Now I’m just bored.”
“Sounds like you haven’t changed that much.”
“Only in the usual ways. I’ve gained a few pounds, lost a few scruples,” The happy tones of Eames’s voice go flat, “Or perhaps you already knew about the latter,” His voice is suddenly cold and distant as if contemplating something he’d rather not, “Perhaps that’s why you’re looking for me.”
“Something like that. There’s a job in Mexico City. You’d be teaching career prostitutes how to forge.”
“Mmm. So you needed a forger with a strong stomach and a certain taste for moral ambiguity, and you thought of me. Is that it?”
Arthur can tell when Eames is insulted and trying to hide it under a jocular facade. But Arthur doesn’t give self-pity a wide berth. “That did figure into it, yeah. But you also favor empathy over judgements. That’s what makes you a great forger. If I’m going to be working with sex workers, I need people on my team that aren’t going to pass judgement.”
Eames considers Arthur’s peace offering. “Fair enough. Go on.”
“Ezekiel Vargas owns a gentlemen’s club in Mexico City. He’s been trying to get into dream prostitution in order to get a leg up on the competition, but the people he’s been working with are amateurs. He wants a team of professional dreamers to show him and his girls how to do it properly.”
Heavy silence from Eames.
Arthur clears his throat and continues. “I’m guessing the job would take at least a month to do right. But it might go longer. I already have a chemist. An American named Aldous. The architect is gonna have to be in-house in order to go under with the girls and their clients. Mr. Vargas is interviewing people right now. But the executive decision is going to be ours.”
“Am I right in thinking that you’re going to be the squad leader in this operation?”
“Yes.”
“How much does it pay?”
“Five hundred. Half up front and half when we finish the job.”
Eames hums thoughtfully. “Are you sure they’re career sex workers? I don’t want anything to do with it if these girls are fourteen-year-old runaways.”
“They’re professional sex workers. I’ve confirmed it with multiple people.”
“When does it start?”
“Two weeks.”
Arthur can hear Eames nodding. “Alright then. I’m in. Do you have a pen and paper? What am I talking about? Of course you do. Let me give you an email address.”
Eames tells Arthur where to send the information. And then a comfortable silence falls over their conversation. This is usually the part where people say their goodbyes and hang up.
“So...” Arthur ventures. “I’ll see you in a couple weeks I guess.”
“It would appear so.” Eames pauses. “You’d better not have gotten taller. That inch you’ve got on me still pisses me off no end.”
“It’s not my fault that everything you ate during your teenage years went straight to your lips.”
Eames chuckles. “I’m hanging up now. But before I go let me give you one piece of advice.”
“What’s that?”
“Do your research next time before you go on vacation. If you had, you’d know that the Piazza de Ferrari is one of the most dangerous places on the European continent to walk through after midnight.”
Arthur breath stalls. “How did you-”
But Eames has already hung up.
~
Arthur takes a boat from Piraeus to Delos, a small, craggy island in the middle of the Mediterranean. Birth place of Apollo. The ancient Greek god of logic, reason, medicine. All the things that cast a light on the dark corners of the human mind. Arthur’s ancestor.
Arthur walks through brown scrub and between white broken stones. Abandoned temples. He stands on a rocky beach. He strips naked, takes a deep breath and walks into the water. He fights his way out into the ocean, and once there, he stops and allows himself to float. Allows himself to become bouyant, directionless, free. Allows himself to feel as a part of the ocean but a small thing in it. It’s a feeling Arthur’s learning to enjoy.
Characters: Arthur, Eames, OCs
Pairing: pre-slash Arthur/Eames
Word Count: 2500
Rating: PG
Summary: Arthur attempts to go on vacation. Mild angst and much introspection ensues. It’s an Arthur character study and appreciation fic!
Originally posted on the kink meme in 12 parts as a response to sho_no_tabi ’s awesome prompt.
~
Arthur doesn’t have to be in Mexico City for another couple of weeks. So he goes on vacation.
He takes the train from Genoa to Milan. Per Cadence’s insistence. He’s under strict orders from her to buy himself some new clothes. Upon delivering his luggage to him in the hospital, she’d said, “You need to invest in some news threads, man. Your shit is worn the fuck out.”
She’s right. Constant travel has not done wonders for the contents of his wardrobe. He hasn’t purchased anything for himself in over a year. He suspects it’s less to do with his being busy and more a feeble act of rebellion. Something to do with his well-dressed father, the contrite architect-cum-tailor. An act akin to him growing his hair out after leaving the military. But part of it is just good old-fashioned middle-class, white male guilt at spending too much money on himself. Arthur still winces every time he spends more than fifty dollars on a meal.
But the instant he walks into the Ermenegildo Zegna flagship store at Via Montenapoleone 27/E, an unexpected feeling of calm washes over him. The warm smell of leather and pressed wool. Concrete walls absorbing and polished tile floors reflecting the light. He gets fitted for a suit and thinks of the first time his father took his measurements. The occasion had been his grandmother’s funeral. Arthur had been fourteen years old at the time. He had rolled his eyes and huffed in embarrassment as his father measured his inseam.
The mood is broken somewhat when the tailor taps Arthur on the lower back and says, “Stand up straighter please.” Arthur responds without flinching, “I got shot in the leg a couple of weeks ago. This is about as straight as I’m going to get. Sorry.” The tailor simply frowns thoughtfully without taking his eyes off his tape measure.
He takes a train from Milan to Venice. He’s on his way back to his hotel from the Peggy Guggenheim Museum when gets lost in a high-walled maze of crumbling buildings and canals. For two hours he wanders. His leg begins to throb, and he wonders how anyone can enjoy a city in which one never knows which direction they’re heading. Then he emerges from a dark alleyway and his breath catches.
He’s at the head of a canal, mere feet from open water that’s nearly level with the bricks on which he stands. It creates the illusion that he could step off the bricks and continue walking over the surface of the water, cross it to the other side of the canal. He turns to his right to see the copper spire of St. Mark’s Campanile piercing the sky. Directly next to him, the dome of the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute pops up out of nowhere like some Renaissance-era circus tent. He sits on the steps of the church and watches as the setting sun turns the stone walls all around him pale pink.
He takes a train to Croatia. Somewhere in between Venice and Zagreb, he finally grows a pair and sends some feelers out for Eames. No one that he speaks to has heard from him directly in a couple of months. So now it’s just a waiting game. Allowing the word that Arthur’s looking for him to make its way across the unofficial dreamsharing phone chain.
In Croatia, Arthur wanders white stone towns nestled in green coastal hills. He sits on a pebbled beach and stares out at the Adriatic. It’s bluer than he imagined it would be. In fact, the entire country surprises him. Nothing about former Soviet satellite countries ever screamed BEAUTIFUL to Arthur.
He shucks off his Italian leather boots, strips off his shirt and his trousers. He lays on the beach in nothing but his briefs, the warm pebbles poking into his back. He’s not going to invest in swim trunks, because he has no intention of going in the water. Arthur’s a horrible swimmer. He only learnt how to swim a couple of years ago. The tourists on the beach don’t need their vacations ruined by the sight of him flailing around in the water like a cat dropped into a bathtub.
He takes a train from Dubrovnik to Sarajevo. He spends a few days getting his mind blown by a city that, growing up, he only ever associated with war and bloodshed. He walks over the bridge where Franz Ferdinand was killed. He gets blotto three nights in a row at the same bar and becomes best friends with a Ukrainian drag queen. He’s deep in conversation with her on the third night when his phone rings. He picks it up to see the caller ID displaying an unfamiliar series of numbers. He lets it ring through to voicemail. He’s on vacation , goddammit.
He listens to the message a couple of hours later while he’s in the toilet, his dick in one hand and his phone in the other, his forehead pressed up against the cold tile wall in front of him. It takes him a couple of listens before he realizes what he’s hearing. It’s not really a proper voicemail. It’s two people arguing loudly in a language that he doesn’t understand. And one of them is speaking in a familiar, aggressive rumble that sends a rush of blood straight to Arthur’s cock. Eames.
Arthur calls the number back, but it just keep ringing and ringing. Eames probably called him from a pay phone. He’ll just have to wait for him to call back. Arthur dislikes being made to wait.
He takes a train from Sarajevo to Athens. Arthur was in Athens once a year ago, assisting Massoud with an extraction/therapy session for an aging member of the Hellenic Parliament. He didn’t see the city then. He just sat in his hotel room, on his computer for three days. Now he walks to the top of Lycabettus hill, the highest hill in Athens, ignoring the dull ache in his leg. Once at the top, he stands next to a small, whitewashed church and looks down at the roof of the Parthenon. From this height, it looks like a model.
He’s hobbling his way back down a seemingly-endless series of stone steps when his phone rings. He picks it up to look at the caller ID. He’s pretty sure it’s the same number that Eames called him from a couple of days ago. He inhales and exhales deeply and picks it up. “Hello?”
A long pause. And then a deep voice murmurs his name. “Arthur?”
Arthur is glad that he’s sitting down because the sound of Eames speaking his name after three years of buildup would have been enough to knock him right on his ass. The only thing he can think to say is, “Eames?”
Another pause. And then, “Christ, Arthur... How long has it been?” He asks as if he honestly doesn’t remember.
Arthur’s jaw clenches. Most people would express disappointment at being forgotten about. Arthur calls bullshit. “You don’t fool me, Eames. You know exactly how long it’s been.”
Eames confesses, “Three years.”
“Three years.” Arthur confirms.
Yet another pause on the other end of the line. Arthur remembers Eames being a much more adept conversationalist. But Arthur understands how faulty human memory can be.
At last, Eames speaks, and his tone makes Arthur’s stomach clench. “There were times,” Eames mumbles, “when I was convinced that I had dreamt the whole thing.”
Arthur has heard this kind of talk from people who have spent too much time in dreams. No, he thinks, don’t tell me it’s gotten you. “Eames. Eames, are you alright?”
Eames continues. “And then I think of that lovely pair of suede Oxfords that I used to wear all the time. And I wonder why I can’t find them in my closet...”
The clouds over Arthur’s visage part, and a giant grin spreads across his face.
“...And then I remember that I don’t have them anymore. Because you got sick all over them, and I had to toss them.”
He throws his head back and laughs. He remembers that night. It was the night that Eames quoted Shirley Jackson to him. The night they got hammered on the beach.
“Don’t laugh at me, you bastard. Not only did you ruin my footwear, but you put me off McDonald’s fries for life. All because you thought it would be a good idea to mix three tumblers full of scotch and a fourteen-piece chicken McNugget meal.”
“I regret nothing. It was worth it for the look on your face. And what was it you said? ‘These are the first pair of shoes I bought with my own money.’”
Eames is laughing now. A familiar deep chuckle that warms the tips of Arthur’s fingers and his toes. “Christ, I was a spoilt brat, wasn’t I?” A thoughtful pause. “I can’t believe it’s only been three years,” he says in a wistful tone. “Feels like it’s been ages. How is it that I’ve aged so much in just three years?”
Arthur nods in agreement. “I know the feeling.”
“I suppose you would, wouldn’t you?” Arthur can hear Eames nibbling on something. Could either be a snack of some sort or his own fingernails. “I hear you’re a bit of a big shot these days. The central nervous system of the dreamsharing community. How exactly did that come about?”
Arthur sighs heavily. “I honestly don’t know. It just sort of happened.”
Eames huffs in amusement. His voice drips with sarcasm when he says, “Well, as long as it makes you happy...”
“Whether or not it makes me happy is besides the point. Somebody’s gotta do it.”
“Spoken like a true leader.”
“I’m not a leader, Eames.”
“No. No, you’re not, are you? What you contribute is rather more important than leadership. You are...” Eames chews and thinks. And when he speaks he does so absently. As if only partially invested in the words coming out of his mouth. “What you do for dreamsharing ‘resembles the eternal rocks beneath - a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”
Eames’ words throw Arthur for a loop momentarily. They always do. Uncanny insight spoken as if it’s not even worth a second thought. Eames has always been utterly unimpressed by his own intelligence. It’s part of what makes him so disarming.
“Arthur? You still there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”
Eames chuckles. “One would think you’d never received a compliment before...”
It takes Arthur a moment to recover. “Actually, I was trying to think of what famous author would best describe you.”
“Mmm. Bukowski perhaps? Or Hunter S. Thompson. Hemingway, even. Seeing as he spent so much time here.”
“So you’re in Spain. Are you on a job?”
“No. I’m standing outside A Taste of Home. Trying to figure out how easy it would be to break in. They don’t open for another...” Arthur can almost hear the jangle of Eames’s pocket watch chain. “...three hours, and I’m desperate for some cheese and onion crisps.”
“You’re drunk, aren’t you?”
“Of course not. I was drunk hours ago. Now I’m just bored.”
“Sounds like you haven’t changed that much.”
“Only in the usual ways. I’ve gained a few pounds, lost a few scruples,” The happy tones of Eames’s voice go flat, “Or perhaps you already knew about the latter,” His voice is suddenly cold and distant as if contemplating something he’d rather not, “Perhaps that’s why you’re looking for me.”
“Something like that. There’s a job in Mexico City. You’d be teaching career prostitutes how to forge.”
“Mmm. So you needed a forger with a strong stomach and a certain taste for moral ambiguity, and you thought of me. Is that it?”
Arthur can tell when Eames is insulted and trying to hide it under a jocular facade. But Arthur doesn’t give self-pity a wide berth. “That did figure into it, yeah. But you also favor empathy over judgements. That’s what makes you a great forger. If I’m going to be working with sex workers, I need people on my team that aren’t going to pass judgement.”
Eames considers Arthur’s peace offering. “Fair enough. Go on.”
“Ezekiel Vargas owns a gentlemen’s club in Mexico City. He’s been trying to get into dream prostitution in order to get a leg up on the competition, but the people he’s been working with are amateurs. He wants a team of professional dreamers to show him and his girls how to do it properly.”
Heavy silence from Eames.
Arthur clears his throat and continues. “I’m guessing the job would take at least a month to do right. But it might go longer. I already have a chemist. An American named Aldous. The architect is gonna have to be in-house in order to go under with the girls and their clients. Mr. Vargas is interviewing people right now. But the executive decision is going to be ours.”
“Am I right in thinking that you’re going to be the squad leader in this operation?”
“Yes.”
“How much does it pay?”
“Five hundred. Half up front and half when we finish the job.”
Eames hums thoughtfully. “Are you sure they’re career sex workers? I don’t want anything to do with it if these girls are fourteen-year-old runaways.”
“They’re professional sex workers. I’ve confirmed it with multiple people.”
“When does it start?”
“Two weeks.”
Arthur can hear Eames nodding. “Alright then. I’m in. Do you have a pen and paper? What am I talking about? Of course you do. Let me give you an email address.”
Eames tells Arthur where to send the information. And then a comfortable silence falls over their conversation. This is usually the part where people say their goodbyes and hang up.
“So...” Arthur ventures. “I’ll see you in a couple weeks I guess.”
“It would appear so.” Eames pauses. “You’d better not have gotten taller. That inch you’ve got on me still pisses me off no end.”
“It’s not my fault that everything you ate during your teenage years went straight to your lips.”
Eames chuckles. “I’m hanging up now. But before I go let me give you one piece of advice.”
“What’s that?”
“Do your research next time before you go on vacation. If you had, you’d know that the Piazza de Ferrari is one of the most dangerous places on the European continent to walk through after midnight.”
Arthur breath stalls. “How did you-”
But Eames has already hung up.
~
Arthur takes a boat from Piraeus to Delos, a small, craggy island in the middle of the Mediterranean. Birth place of Apollo. The ancient Greek god of logic, reason, medicine. All the things that cast a light on the dark corners of the human mind. Arthur’s ancestor.
Arthur walks through brown scrub and between white broken stones. Abandoned temples. He stands on a rocky beach. He strips naked, takes a deep breath and walks into the water. He fights his way out into the ocean, and once there, he stops and allows himself to float. Allows himself to become bouyant, directionless, free. Allows himself to feel as a part of the ocean but a small thing in it. It’s a feeling Arthur’s learning to enjoy.