Disclaimer: I do not own Inception. This story came about whilst listening to TV On the Radio and resting with a broken arm. Enjoy.
There was a distinct smell in the air.
Something like cigarettes, Calvin Kline cologne, and herbal tea. Each smell was different and conflicting and together, they smelt like something horridly and painfully beautiful. Something of accuracy. They all smelt like the three people he trusted most.
Cigarettes.
That stinky, smokey smell reminded him of the tall and slender red head who occupied most of his time. Tracey. She wasn't nice and that was nice to him.
Cologne
The sweet and strong stench sent electric currents to his brain which played out a memory involving shiny FBI shoes, Armani suits and a pair of brown eyes, hard and intense. Arthur.
Herbal tea.
The green herbs reminded him of how hot and stinky his mouth felt and what he wouldn't do for a pack of spearmint gum to cure the stench that was no different than morning breath, but they also reminded him of his dead mother. Angela. The drunken apparition of a mom that should have taken her place.
How all three of these scents came together, he had no idea. He figured the blunt object being beaten against his skull was sending mixed signals to his brain. Tracing back old memories and putting them here in this room where he was only one ounce of blood away from dying. He prayed the next beating would come soon. Then he wouldn't be able to feel the seemingly perpetual dizziness that was making his brain sway like the palm trees in Florida during a tornado. He felt more inebriated than he had all those times he did things beyond his age under bleachers with Tracey, more confused than he had when Arthur sent jabs at his stomach for reasons unknown and more hurt than the he was the very last moments he had spent with his mother.
As he lied there on that stone cold, poor excuse for a floor, he thought of all the things he had heard about heartbreak. How his mother used to say that he could be beaten to a point of no return, and that pain would still not beat your heartbreak. He used to believe that, but now he just feels like his mother never had her ribs bruised or shins broken.
