the middle of the night (literally) with a guard shouting "Who's there?" when he hears footsteps in the darkness around him. The guards are nervous, and they're particularly attentive to noises in the dark because some of them say that they've seen a ghost—the ghost of Hamlet's father.

The Star Wars movie series is an example of the use of in medias res in cinema. Not only does each film in the epic series begin in medias res—in the middle of ongoing action—but the first film released was Episode 4, a film that is itself in the middle of the 9-film series.

The famous television series Breaking Bad also employs in medias res. The first episode of the series begins with the lead character, Walter White, speeding through the middle of the New Mexico desert in his recreational vehicle for reasons that aren't explained until much later in the episode and television series.

"How I Met My Husband" begins in medias res with the sound of an airplane roaring overhead, and the sight of the plane seemingly falling out of the sky:

We heard the plane come over, roaring through the radio news, and we were sure it was going to hit the house, so we all ran out into the yard. We saw it come over the treetops, all red and silver, the first close-up plane I ever saw. Mrs. Peebles screamed.

Two short paragraphs later, the narrator provides some background information:

This was my first job—working for Dr. and Mrs. Peebles, who had bought an old house out on the Fifth Line, about five miles out of town....

The next paragraph puts the reader back into the opening action, and at the same time the narrator provides additional exposition and background information:

We watched the plane land across the road, where the fairground used to be. It did make a good landing field, nice and level for the old race track, and the barns and display sheds torn down now for scrap lumber so nothing was in the way. Even the old grandstand bays had burned.

The plane landed safely, and the reader now knows about the narrator's first job for Dr. and Mrs. Peebles, that Mrs. Peebles is somewhat excitable, and that the people in the community used to attend fairs at the fairgrounds where the pilot safely landed the plane. For some unexplained reason, however, the fairgrounds have been abandoned and the buildings and sheds have fallen into disrepair and been carted off for scrap lumber.

On the next page of the story, in paragraph 15, the reader learns that the pilot didn't crash-land his plane at the fairgrounds, but landed there on purpose:

"I know what he's landed here for," she [Loretta Bird] said. "He's got permission to use the fairgrounds and take people up for a ride. It costs a dollar. It's the same fellow who was over at Palmerston last week and was up the lakeshore before that."

The narrator continues to provide information related to the in medias res opening of the story, as well as information about the environment in which the story takes place and the growing cast of characters, and there's still quite some distance to go in the story before the narrator actually meets her husband. The in medias res opening of the story sets the scene for all of these future revelations.