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drabbles20in20 FIC: Themes Part One: Interpretive
Apr. 20th, 2011 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrixrefugeeSince there's four blocks of prompts for the drabbles20in20, I've broken them up into four entries to make it easier for linking and posting purposes. Pardon the f-list spamming!
One of the keys to working with a forger, particularly a trickster like Eames, was keeping a mirror at hand. Unfortunately, that meant that the design had to have a minimum of glassy surfaces (no small feat, given Cobb's taste for airy Bauhaus structures), since an especially observant subject might easily spot the forger's reflection and see past their mimicry. He had started carrying a pocket mirror with him, particularly during test runs, to make sure where his forger was at all times.
Sometimes he did this just to give Eames hell for the times he'd pranked the team.
Little things, seemingly minor details could make or break a job. Nash screwing up the carpet in Saito's love-nest wasn't the first time Cobb had seen things go south. He'd done a job when the subject realized he was dreaming because the color was off in the wallpaper. And he had, in a moment of carelessness, nearly munged his own first job because he'd neglected to add the carving on a banister. Some considered him a martinet for going over designs with the proverbial fine-tooth comb, but he'd rather fuss over detail than lose a job over a small thing.
Checking the design one last time had always been a priority for Cobb, and with Mal out of his head, he could go back to designing.
He was checking the boundaries of the second level of the dream, the main concourse of a hotel, for a CEO tracking an accountant, when he heard footsteps behind him. Looking back, he spotted Mal, looking out over the parapet of the mezzanine. He started to back away, when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a reflection on a darkened window.
"Eames, don't do that again: you almost gave me a heart attack."
A minute in the waking world equaled an hour in the dream, but experience had taught Cobb that this expansion of time did not allow time for dawdling. That chest rumbling echo on the wind meant the kick was about to happen and he had only what equaled seconds to finish the extraction. Seconds to pick the lock on a safe, milli-seconds to cajole or threaten or shake a subject into giving up information. Micro-seconds to find the exit and brace for the dream collapsing.
But that minute to end the dream felt like an hour when the pain hit him.
The middle of the night, a time when it wasn't unusual for Cobb to wake up. Work kept him asleep for hours at a time and that played hob with his circadian rhythms.
Thus it wasn't odd for him to sit up in the wee hours of the morning, working, writing or trying not to think about Mal. Her voice tended to come out of the dark corners of memory, so clear and vivid he had to reach for his totem to make she he wasn't dreaming,
Some nights he sat awake till the sky greyed with daybreak before he could sleep.
drabbles20in20, I've broken them up into four entries to make it easier for linking and posting purposes. Pardon the f-list spamming! One of the keys to working with a forger, particularly a trickster like Eames, was keeping a mirror at hand. Unfortunately, that meant that the design had to have a minimum of glassy surfaces (no small feat, given Cobb's taste for airy Bauhaus structures), since an especially observant subject might easily spot the forger's reflection and see past their mimicry. He had started carrying a pocket mirror with him, particularly during test runs, to make sure where his forger was at all times.
Sometimes he did this just to give Eames hell for the times he'd pranked the team.
Little things, seemingly minor details could make or break a job. Nash screwing up the carpet in Saito's love-nest wasn't the first time Cobb had seen things go south. He'd done a job when the subject realized he was dreaming because the color was off in the wallpaper. And he had, in a moment of carelessness, nearly munged his own first job because he'd neglected to add the carving on a banister. Some considered him a martinet for going over designs with the proverbial fine-tooth comb, but he'd rather fuss over detail than lose a job over a small thing.
Checking the design one last time had always been a priority for Cobb, and with Mal out of his head, he could go back to designing.
He was checking the boundaries of the second level of the dream, the main concourse of a hotel, for a CEO tracking an accountant, when he heard footsteps behind him. Looking back, he spotted Mal, looking out over the parapet of the mezzanine. He started to back away, when out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a reflection on a darkened window.
"Eames, don't do that again: you almost gave me a heart attack."
A minute in the waking world equaled an hour in the dream, but experience had taught Cobb that this expansion of time did not allow time for dawdling. That chest rumbling echo on the wind meant the kick was about to happen and he had only what equaled seconds to finish the extraction. Seconds to pick the lock on a safe, milli-seconds to cajole or threaten or shake a subject into giving up information. Micro-seconds to find the exit and brace for the dream collapsing.
But that minute to end the dream felt like an hour when the pain hit him.
The middle of the night, a time when it wasn't unusual for Cobb to wake up. Work kept him asleep for hours at a time and that played hob with his circadian rhythms.
Thus it wasn't odd for him to sit up in the wee hours of the morning, working, writing or trying not to think about Mal. Her voice tended to come out of the dark corners of memory, so clear and vivid he had to reach for his totem to make she he wasn't dreaming,
Some nights he sat awake till the sky greyed with daybreak before he could sleep.