Arthur sat on the rickety bed, his elbows resting on his knees, his head dropped in his hands. Eyes closed, he let out a long sigh. His mind was racing, yet at the same time it was strangely silent. He tried to calm himself, running his long fingers through his slicked-back hair, feeling the oily gel on his skin. He let out another sigh and opened his eyes.
Harsh light from the parking lot lights was thrown on the wall; the trees in front of the window were dividing the light into distorted shapes and shadows. He looked at them, the twisted images; they reminded him of himself, of his mind, of how he felt inside. Twisted, contorted, wrung-out and hung-out to dry.
Again he sighed and slowly stood, grunting as he did. He stretched his sore arms, and then walked to the bathroom. He stared down at his black socks as he dragged his feet, one foot in front of the other. At the bathroom, he shut the door and locked it, despite his realization that he was alone in the tiny hotel room.
He moved slowly to the shower and turned the hot water all the way on, he didn't care if it burned him. Back to the mirror he trudged, bending down to get towels from the cabinet. Standing up again, he looked into the mirror, placing the small towels on the counter beside him. Sighing, he stared at his body, a sad fragment of what it used to be.
He started with his face. His hair was mussed from running his fingers through it, his forehead was creased from worrying. His mouth was turned down, his lips were chapped and dry. Overall, he was very pale, despite his already light complexion. His cheeks had no color in them, blending in with the rest of his skin. But his eyes, they were vastly different. Dark, forbidding, and bleak, the two black circles stared back, their gaze so full of loneliness, so much pain. His eyes betrayed him; they were his weakness. He could hide any emotion from anyone, until they looked directly into his eyes. Once the viewer caught sight of them, they could read his feelings like pages from a book.
He slowly unbuttoned his dress shirt and loosened his tie, and threw both onto the floor. He stared down at them, that shirt was his favorite, the one with the blue stripes. Back to the mirror he dragged his eyes, then lifted his undershirt over his head. He stared at his chest as he did, rolling his shirt in a ball. Like his face, he was ghostly pale, his skin tight against his lean muscles and bones. Bones, he could see them, the rib cage, and the hipbones. He sighed and slid his belt from their loops, letting his pants sag to his hips. He dragged his finger along the ridges of his hips, and up to his ribs; so empty. Sighing, he leaned on the counter; his hands gripped the sink as if the floor were going to fall from under him. "What's wrong with me?" he murmured, as he slowly let go of the sink, then raised his hands to run his fingers through his stringy hair once again. He let his long bangs fall into his eyes, but instead of brushing them away, he continued to comb them down over his face, curious as to how long they had grown. The strands stopped at his lips. He would need a haircut in a few weeks.
He continued to stare, listening to the water in the shower, the room growing warmer. He stooped over lazily and took off his socks, then began to unbutton his pants.
He stepped into the shower, the water burned him, but he didn't mind. He didn't care. The stinging felt strangely soothing. He sighed, inhaling the steam, and slicked his hair back with the water. He continued to wash himself; his body was beginning to tingle from the heat.
Finally, he turned the water off, slamming the handle down without realizing. He wiped the water drops from his face with his hands, breathing heavily from the intense heat. He pushed back the curtain and grabbed the towel from the counter, as the cold air began to grip his naked form. He shivered and wrapped the towel around him tightly.
He stood still and looked at himself in the mirror, watching the drops of water run down his arms and fall from his wild hair. Slowly, he pulled the towel from around him and began drying off, starting with his head and ending with his legs and feet. After wrapping the towel about his middle, he cautiously unlocked and opened the door, knowing that the room was empty, but one could never be sure.
He swung the door open, and walked to the chair where his suitcase was laying below the window. The sun was about to rise; he could see the colors of the sky turning from dark blues to pale oranges. It was beautiful. He looked back to he case, opened it, then chose a clean undershirt and underwear, a pair of black dress pants, his green-striped dress shirt, and a pair of black socks. He looked behind him at the small digital clock, 6:13. He sighed and looked back at his clothes, then only took the pants, undershirt, and underwear. He trudged back to the bathroom and shut the door.
After dressing, he combed his hair back, yet did not gel it back, yet. He brushed his teeth and washed his face, then stared at the bottle of hair gel. "Why bother?" he asked himself, realizing that he wasn't going to see anyone today, so why look good, he reasoned.
He put the bottle back into his shaving kit, sighed, then walked out of the bathroom and to the bed. Grabbing the sheets, he pulled them up to the pillows and smoothed the wrinkles. He knew that making the bed was the hotel maid's job, but the chore was a habit. He took up his computer from his nightstand and checked his email, not surprised to find no new messages. "Who'd want to talk to me anyways?" he thought, then grabbed his phone from the tiny nightstand. No calls, no texts. "There's a surprise" he mumbled.
His stomach growled; it was empty, just like the rest of him. He felt like a shell, as if the real Arthur had molted, leaving this skin, this distant memory of his past self, behind. He looked over at the nightstand and picked up his totem, the loaded die. He played with it between his fingers, feeling the indentations of the numbers. He sighed, and turned to lay on his stomach, facing the little night table. He shook the die in his palm, and then threw it. He exhaled slowly, seeing the result. Just as he had thought, this was the real world. But how could it be? He couldn't remember a time when he was more depressed than now. He was never this bad, this low. He was the one who hid everything he was feeling; yet now all he wanted to do was display his emotions on his sleeve. He wanted people to see, to know how he felt, to see the pain in his eyes, the loneliness. Loneliness... He never remembered a time when he ever felt lonely. He was a loner; after all, he didn't need anyone else, until now.
Ever since the inception job, he couldn't stop thinking about Ariadne, about Cobb, and the others. He missed the sense of family that had formed between them as they faithfully prepared for the big day. He missed having friends, he missed having people around him in general, it was lonely in his little hotel room, or even at his desk in the large cube farm he worked in, tapping away at the computer, technical support and research. It was a solitary life.
Before he joined Cobb on the first job, he lived alone and was happy. He needed no one; he wanted no one. He liked the empty rooms, the quiet car rides, the silent nights alone, reading books or doing research. But now, the empty room seemed unbearable.
He missed his friends so much, he wished one of them would call, if only to just say hello. But of course, no such call came. He stared out the window and sighed again, watching the sunrise. The sky was now light blue mixed with pale yellow. He thought about the inception job, about the kiss... Why had he done that? It was just an impulse, a whim; a stupid idea that his subconscious carried out, despite his mental judgment. Why had she gone with it? Did she ever think about it like he did? Did she even ever think about him?
"Probably not" he said out loud, trying to lightly laugh the idea away, but he couldn't. The idea remained. Deeper, he thought deeper about her, about her face and her hair, her smell, and her smile. He was falling for her. He hadn't seen her for three months. She probably had found someone better than him already.
This thought made him sigh again, and he subconsciously ran his fingers through his wet hair, trying to keep it slicked back, yet it kept falling on his forehead and parting in the center. He hadn't put any gel in it he remembered. Did she think about him he wondered?
His stomach growled again, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since yesterday's lunch. He ignored it and continued to think. His mind drifted to Cobb, he wondered how he was doing, he and the kids. He must have been happy to see them. He wished he could have seen their reactions when he walked through the door; their faces must have been beaming.
He smiled at this, then stood and went to the window and looked down at the parking lot, and the city beyond. The streets were busy, so full of people, full of life. He felt dead compared to he livelihood of the town.
With this, he retreated to his bed, opened his computer, and sighed, wishing there was more to life than the endless miserable cycle that he found himself in.