k i s s i s s i p p i

HOW DO YOU GET ME TO WRITE SOMETHING I’VE NEVER EVEN CONTEMPLATED BEFORE, HOW DO YOU DO THAT, WHAT IS YOUR MAGIC T-MONEY?

—

There’s a shelf, running the length of the wall, carefully reinforced every so often so as not to bow under the weight of the orderly row of notebooks (sorted chronologically, Eames is sure, despite no obvious markings on their slim black spines, despite not having opened them, not yet, he doesn’t need to, yet). If Eames were in a film, maybe, or a novel, some genre with rigid archetypes without the fluidity of chance that exists in reality, this would probably be designated the “Room of Crazy” as it were, articles tacked with a depth of order to the walls, notebooks crammed cover to cover with disjointed, haphazard writing, but it’s not, not this chase, not with Arthur. As it is, the room is brightly lit (not dank and dim from a single hanging lightbulb), no shadows but the ones Arthur creates himself, with a neat leather sofa in severe lines, and a dark, lavish desk, its surface empty save the clean square of an index card, an index card that will read, Still running me down, Mr. Eames? Perhaps next time. -A, an index card that’s meaningless, because no clue Arthur can leave will ever help more than the knowledge Eames already has of him, deep down in his bones.