All language subtitles for bea u h h h d yyyyy

On the way to the bus stop,

bill saw somebody he
recognized walking towards him,

but he couldn't
remember his name.

He began to think
of things to say

when they'd be close enough
to acknowledge each other.

As they drew nearer,
their eyes locked,

uncertain if the other
was going to stop to talk.

The person greeted bill,
as bill mixed up the phrases,

"what's up?"

With, "how's it going?"

Confused, the
person blurted out,

"thanks," before he
knew what he was saying.

Words caught in bill's
throat and he replied,

"weh ."

They did a sort
of awkward half-turn

and then continued on,

now confident that the other
was not going to stop to talk.

They never saw each other again,

and a day later had each
forgotten the whole thing.

Later that night, bill sat
down and put on a big sweater

but it only made him sleepy.

In the supermarket, bill
was always very careful

to select fruit from only the
back of the produce piles,

as the fruit in the front
was at crotch-level

to the other customers.

An old man who smelled of
gasoline held up an onion

and said, "big onion,"
to no one in particular.

He smiled at bill and
bill looked at his socks.

At the check-out counter,
bill found himself

behind a big guy
whose t-shirt read,

"second place is
the first loser."

The check-out girl said,
"how are you doing today?"

Bill said, "fine
thanks, how are you?"

She didn't answer.

Bill felt used.

As he waited for his next bus,

bill stared at a
torn shopping bag

that was blowing in the wind
on the end of a broken pole,

and anxiously sucked blood
out of a sore in the corner

of his mouth.

Bill dropped his keys
on the counter

and stood there staring at them,

suddenly thinking
about all the times

he'd thrown his keys
there before...

And how many days of
his life were wasted...

Repeating the same tasks and
rituals in his apartment,

over and over again.

But then he wondered
if, realistically...

This was his life...

And the unusual part was his
time spent doing other things.

Bill sat down and read
a celebrity interview.

Then he watched the ants
crawl around in his sink.

That night, bill dreamt
of a monstrous fish head

that fed upon his skull.

In the morning,

bill felt really tired even
though he'd just been sleeping.

His calendar had a photo of a
manatee on it for the month.

It always seemed as though

the manatee was staring at him.

Bill sat in the living room
with a giant box of crackers.

He thought some food
might help him get going,

but felt kind of
strange eating in front

of the television
without having it on.

Pretty soon he was
watching a boxing match

on a Mexican channel.

He'd been watching a
lot of boxing lately

but didn't really know why.

In the 4th round there was
an accidental head butt

that split open one of the
fighter's heads pretty badly.

They showed it
over and over again,

in slow motion.

Before he knew it,

bill had eaten the
entire box of crackers.

He felt really lousy
and didn't want to get up.

He had a sudden urge
to talk to somebody,

so bill phoned his
ex-girlfriend and told her

about the manatee
on his calendar.

"Did you ever see the movie
about the giant manatee

that attacked a
city?" She asked.

"I think you mean giant
mantis, said bill.

"Oh yeah", she said.

"Giant mantis."

The next morning,
bill felt even worse.

Downtown, the hot smell
of manure blew past him

as he walked.

Bill soon came upon three
dead horses in the road,

apparently struck down
by a large moving vehicle.

"Well," he thought, "that
would explain the smell, then."

He met his ex-girlfriend
during her lunch break

and they took a
walk to the park.

He noticed that every
time he was near her,

she sort of moved away with a
tight-lipped smile on her face,

asthough everything were ok.

Mostly they talked about death.

They agreed that being buried
seemed too claustrophobic,

and bill didn't
want to be cremated

after he'd read that the
intense heat boils fluids

in the skull until
your head explodes.

He decided that he'd
want his body shot off

into space in a rocket ship.

He figured it'd be too
expensive to launch

the weight of his entire
body, but maybe just sending

his head into space
would be good enough,

preferably in front
of a little window.

His-ex girlfriend said
she'd be really creeped out

if she knew bill's severed
head was floating around

above her in space.

Bill was given a new booklet

at the clinic, discussing
potential memory loss

in his treatment.

Inside was a
cartoon character saying,

"I don't know about you folks,

but I could lose my
keys eatin' breakfast."

His neighbor, trying to
be helpful but failing,

cornered bill in the parking lot

to explain how
cryogenic scientists

could freeze his brain in ice
until a point in the future

when microscopic robots
could repair it.

Bill daydreamed about
all the brains in jars

he used to see at school,
how he used to wonder

whether there were still somehow
pieces of individuals inside...

Scattered fragments
of partial dreams

or lost memories locked deep
within that dead tissue..

Or whether this entire
archive is immediately erased,

the moment that the body fails.

He began to think of
people in a new light...

How everyone's just little
more than that frightened,

fragile brain stem...

Surrounded by meat and physics,

too terrified to recognize
the sum of their parts...

Insulated in the
shells of their skulls

and lower middle class houses...

Afraid of change,
afraid of decisions,

afraid of pain...

Stuck in traffic,
listening to terrible music.

His neighbor stared
at him and said,

"last night, I dreamt
all my toes fell off."

On the way to his front door,

bill's other neighbor said,

"sup, as in, "what's up?"

Inside he noticed a
weird wet spot on his mattress

that he didn't remember
being there before.

Bill watched part of
a documentary program

about a 5,000 year old ice
man that was found in Italy.

Scientists explored
its colon and everything

on live television.

Bill wondered if the ice man

could ever have imagined
this would one day

have happened to him.

That night, bill dreamt
he was at the seaside,

desperately throwing dead
bodies off of a little boat.

Bill took a walk in the park
to try and get some fresh air.

He noticed somebody had written,

"I love you," in the
playground sand

and he thought that
was really beautiful.

As he continued on,
a sudden dribble

of urine shot down his pant leg.

That was unexpected.

Then some little fat kid
with a deformed foot tried

to sell him a
magazine subscription.

Bill looked at the list
of magazines for sale

and angrily wondered why they
didn't offer any Asian porn...

Then he wondered
why he wondered that.

On his way to the clinic,

he found he had a little
trouble understanding people...

Even his pamphlet
seemed different.

The guy next to him at the bus
stop had the head of a cow,

but bill pretended
not to notice.

His doctor said he had
some discouraging news:

The latest tests ruled out

the possibility
of further surgeries,

and his current treatment didn't
seem to be making any progress.

He wanted to start
bill on something new.

He couldn't think of any reason

why bill should be
seeing things though

and asked him a
series of questions.

"You have to understand that
your body is going through a

lot of stress right now..."

Bill picked up
his new medication,

went home, and
masturbated for seven hours.

He woke up the following morning

and thought his room
seemed different.

His mouth was bleeding...

Four of his teeth had
fallen out in the night.

They looked sort
of like dog teeth.

Everyone in the supermarket
looked like some sort of demon.

And they all had gigantic,
bacteria-ridden crotches

buried in the all
the goddamned produce!

It felt like his
whole body was sparkling.

His shoes felt as though
they were filling with blood

and his hands
smelled like copper.

When he got home, he found a
pair of lion king slippers

in his closet

but had no idea whose they were,
or how they got in there.

Silly high-pitched voice:
"The pipe is leakingl...

Bill could read the
thoughts of his waitress,

who wore too much eye
makeup and had no self-esteem.

Outside, horribly deformed birds
checked their voice mail...

"I am made nervous by a clone

that grows beneath my closet..."

"It's not as complicated as
that, we just don't like you..."

"I am a man with a very large hat.
This means I am in charge."

"I am sexually inadequate."

"Why do you keep
treating me this way?"

"Darkness...
Darkness... darkness..."

"The effects of
tranquilizers on animals

at higher altitudes
are unpredictable..."

"Why don't you come over
here and sit on my lap?"

After lunch, bill put on
the lion king slippers

and flew to the bus stop.

[A growing, disturbing
chorus of backwards music

Bill dropped his
keys on the counter

and stood there staring at them,

suddenly thinking
about all the times

he'd thrown his
keys there before,

and how many days
of his life were wasted...

But then he wondered
if, realistically,

this was his life...

This was his life...

This was his life...

[All of the backwards
voices and strange

and frightening noises
reach a climax...

"The power of Christ
compels you!

The power of
Christ compels you!"

[Sudden silence... a distant
sound of a wind tunnel...

[Everyday sounds of a busy city,

His mother came
to take care of him,

all the way from Omaha.

She was a waitress
and often smelt

of baby powder and cheese.

They spent a lot of time
together doing puzzles

and watching television.

One morning as bill was staring
at the patterns in the carpet,

she noticed a loose
thread in his collar.

"How could you think
I'd ever want to hurt you?"

She said, and
crumpled to the floor.

In that moment, bill thought
she looked really old.

Sometimes the fluids in the iv
put a funny taste in his mouth.

Bill awoke to find
beautiful sunlight streaming

through his window.

He tried to climb through it,

but didn't have
the strength to stand.

The next morning,
bill actually felt pretty good.

The day after that,
he felt even better.

Then he felt a lot worse.

But the following day,
bill felt just fine.

"I'm sorry, I just don't
know what to make of it,

his doctor said.

"Maybe bill's body
is simply rallying

before finally giving up."

His uncle, whom bill had not
even noticed in the room,

had taken a lot of time off work

to fly in all the
way from Tulsa.

He looked vaguely annoyed.

After another two days,

they concluded bill
was not going to die,

so his mother had all of the
flowers removed from his room.

She also had to have
his casket returned,

at great expense
and inconvenience.

Bill had to go back to
work the following Tuesday.

It rained for the
entire bus ride.

[Beautiful symphonic
music gradually builds

and swells in cascades,

Last week, bill's class
took a field trip to the beach.

His half-brother,
Randall came along:

A little boy in the special
class with aluminum hook arms,

whose mind was as
misshapen as his legs.

No one at school really knew him

because he always
rode a separate bus...

And was taught to stand
within the confines

of a tetherball
circle every recess.

In the late afternoon,
Randall was over

with the adults when he
spotted a gull overhead.

His eyes burst with emotion

and he suddenly took off
stumbling after it.

Tears streaming
down his little face,

he stretched his
aluminum hooks as wide

as he could towards
the sun, howling,

"booooooon! Booooooonp

and disappeared
into the deep blue sea.

The other kids were surprised
he could even run that fast.

Bill's mother put a
heavy coat over him

whenever he left the house,

for fear that he
might fall victim

to something called
"walking pneumonia."

She starting doing this the
winter after losing Randall,

but then made him wear it every
day for the next five years.

In the summers,

he also had to wear a helmet
and asbestos safety gloves.

These were the days
she rarely left the house

and shaved the cat on weekends.

On his sixth birthday, his
mother gave him a postage stamp

and a piece of yarn and
hugged him for five minutes.

His parents argued again
that night and she threw meat.

His stepfather
stormed to the door,

where he turned his
face up towards a hole

in the ceiling and yelled,

"I just can't handle this
god damned woman," and left.

She stared at the front door

and rocked there
in place, saying,

"AAA AAA AAA AAA AAA AAA AAA."

Every now and then at school,

he'd find a note from
her in his lunch box.

His hair was
finally growing back.

After completing the
clinic's daily memory quiz,

bill went to the city and saw
ants take apart a dead bird.

Yesterday, he
spent thirty seconds

trying to open his front
door with his mailbox key.

It's been over a year
now since his diagnosis,

when they'd stayed
up late drinking

and bill slept on the couch.

In the morning, he sat
on the toilet seat

and quietly watched her
put on her make-up.

That afternoon, she
told him it was over.

In the hardware store, a
nice kid with a skin condition

helps bill find
the right battery

for his wall clock.

He had taken a walk to the park,

but didn't really know
what to do with his day there.

At home he makes toast,
but changes his mind.

He's been having
trouble sleeping again,

and realizes he's lying in
the dark with his eyes open.

Whenever grandma would visit
and he'd show her his drawings,

she'd often imagine how easily
she could toss little bill

into the fireplace...

Or even through a thin window...

For he was still young and
quite small, and floppy...

And she reckoned light
enough for a woman of her size

and strength to hurl across
the room several yards or more.

In the middle of the night
she opens the drawer

to find the preserved
cat head from last week.

She can feel the fish
smothering her brain,

and the magic scrubbing
of their furry little heads

across her skin is
doing less and less good...

[Strange echoes: "Doing
less and less good...

And she decides this is

because their little
heads are of low quality...

And she needs more of them...

Many, many more of them,
from higher pedigree breeds...

Little heads with richer
skin and better hair-dos

and cleaner little ears
and clearer eyes...

They said she had a tumor
and was suffering from seizures

and dementia.

Bill didn't know
what those words meant,

but he had ideas.

Grandma was born in
bootblack, Wyoming,

two years after
the great mud storms

drowned all the hogs.

Her father serviced
electric machines...

And once strangled a rock in
a fit of religious excitement.

He enjoyed wood...

And telling the children
late-night stories

of how his own papa
used to tame the wilderness.

He was a quiet, unassuming man
who was eating an onion one day

when he was cut
in half by a train.

Grandma's older brother
became a preacher

who grew his mole hairs
long to purify his soul.

In his early years,
he secretly fathered

an illegitimate child
and smothered it one night

in the abandoned stable.

[Ominous crickets and frogs

As he aged, he became plagued
with firebugs and once claimed

to have seen an acquatic
creature make off

with the sheriff's prize cow.

He was eventually crippled
with lead poisoning and polio.

And was killed by a train.

Grandma's little sister, Polly,

had beautiful golden hair

and pounded at imaginary
animals with a hammer.

She died at the age of eight
after contracting yellow fever.

And catching on fire.

After Polly's death, grandma's
mother cut out her tongue

and vigorously enjoyed
taking health tonics

and prescription medications.

Awild man wandered
into town that summer

and beat the church
organist with a shovel.

He defecated what looked
like a pile of blueberries

on the family
porch and disappeared,

howling into the marsh.

Nobody knew that this wild man

was in fact grandma's
great-uncle...

A forgotten, unwanted child
who'd been fed carbolic acid

and abandoned in the northern
woods fifty-two years prior.

He ate mud and sticks

and knew only how to
say the word, "Bible."

He died alone in a field
one summer morning

while dreaming of the moon.

Six weeks later, a
sunflower grew out of his head.

In their later years,
grandma's family

moved to the big city,
where her mother lived out

the rest of her
days making jam...

And persecuting Jews.

There was a bush in
front of their building

in the shape of a heart
that made her cry

every time she saw it.

She died alone while grandma
was away at boarding school,

surrounded by
visions of phantoms.

Grandpa died eleven years
before grandma did.

He used to sit next
to her every Sunday,

but now she plays
his bingo card for him.

Last night, bill dreamt
he was young again,

in a field with
friends at the seaside.

A big happy seal barked
at them and bounded

from the water to play soccer.

He was pretty good.

It was like an animal movie.

Then the seal hit the
ball a little too excited

and it flew over everyone's
heads and struck a little boy

in an adjacent field
really hard in the chest.

It seemed like maybe
he had a heart condition

or something because
he wasn't moving.

Everyone sort of froze.

The seal retreated to the sea.

Nobody knew what to do.

He'd slept on his arm funny
and it felt sort of numb.

Sometimes it sounds like
there's voices in the water.

He's been putting
some weight back on

and his doctor had said
that was good news.

At the bus stop his
left testicle ached

for no apparent reason and it
almost made him feel dizzy.

Not much happened at work.

Bill made a pyramid
out of three staplers.

And the new guy
swallowed a paper clip

and was rushed out
in a wheelchair.

The guy in the next cubicle
over told bill about a thing

he saw on TV

about identical twins
who were separated at birth

but had individually grown
up to be serial killers.

It was as though they
didn't have any choice

in what they turned into.

"Genetics is pretty
messed up, he said,

as his chewing gum flung
itself from his mouth.

At lunch he told bill
about a physics book

he was reading about time.

How the passing of
time is just an illusion,

because all of eternity is
actually taking place at once.

The past never vanishes away,

and the future
has already happened.

All of history is
fixed and laid out,

like an infinite landscape
of simultaneous events

that we simply happen to travel
through in one direction.

Bill made a joke that he could
have sworn he'd been told

that somewhere before,

but the guy just stared at
him like he didn't get it.

At home bill watched the
microwave spin his food

and daydreamed about
the galapagos islands.

He'd purchased the
new brand of paper towels

that had hundreds
of little raised bumps

across every sheet.

He found a message on
the answering machine...

That was sorry to inform him

his mother had just
died that morning.

They said she'd launched into
a fit of senile hysterics

after skipping her medication.

And was hit by a train.

She'd reserved her own
funeral plot years in advance

in order to be buried
alongside her parents...

But due to a clerical error

had to be placed
fifty yards away,

between a coffin full of rocks

and a rich woman's
golden retriever.

After the funeral, bill went
through her old storage boxes

and was surprised to find
a 100 year old photo album.

Among the many
pictures of relatives

and people he never knew

were several photographs
of bacon... and lumber.

He also found an old
series of strange portraits

that had been neatly labeled,
for unknown future reference.

Scattered throughout the
box were forgotten photos

of himself as a young boy.

He'd read once how each cell
in the body replaces itself

and dies as the years pass...

How everyone is
slowly reconstructed

out of continuously
changing pieces.

It depressed him how foreign
the pictures seemed to him now,

how his ridiculous, ingrown
cells had long ago stolen

this happy dead kid's identity,

and with his own life,
made a complete mess of it.

Beneath the album

was a folder of his
mother's medical records.

Attached to her
initial diagnosis

was a physician's note

that strongly recommended
she never have a child.

He pictures himself
having trouble breathing

and waking to a roomful
of concerned faces.

He'd been terrified
of dying his entire life,

and as much as he'd
tried not to think about it,

death was always in
the back of his head,

around every corner, and
hovering on each horizon.

He'd brushed shoulders with
death on a few occasions,

but in his carefree youth
it had almost seemed like

an abstract, impossible thing
to ever happen to him.

But with each passing decade,

he began to Gauge the
time he probably had left,

and by his 40s, what he
considered his halfway point

at best, he had come to
know just one thing:

You will only get older.

The next thing you
know, you're looking back

instead of fonnard.

And now, at the climax
of all those years of worry,

sleepless nights, and denials,

bill finally finds himself
staring his death

in the face...

Surrounded by people
he no longer recognizes

and feels no
closer attachment to

than the thousands of
relatives who'd come before.

And as the sun continues to set,

he finally comes to
realize the dumb irony

in how he'd been waiting for
this moment his entire life.

This stupid, awkward moment
of death that had invaded

and distracted so many days
with stress and wasted time.

If only he could travel back
and impart some wisdom

to his younger self.

If only he could at least
tell the young people

in this room.

He lifts an arm to speak
but inexplicably says,

"it smells like
dust and moonlight."

[The classical
music continues to build

He'd forgotten years ago

to replace the battery in the
cheap wall clock in his kitchen

and it was forever
stuck on 11:57.

He couldn't remember
why he'd put a clock there

in the first place,

since it was sort of
in an awkward nook

around a corner where he'd
never wonder what time it was.

Near the bottom
of the storage box,

bill found an old notebook
he'd never seen before...

Filling the pages inside,
his mother had repeatedly

practiced her handwriting,
so she could send him off

to school with the
best-looking notes.

He calls his ex-girlfriend

and arranges to meet for
lunch after his check-up.

This morning
he couldn't remember

where he'd put the clinic's
daily memory quizzes.

He decides to make toast...

But for a long moment
can't think of how it's done.

There's only a brown stain now
where that bird had been.

His doctor has
nothing but good news.

Bill has continued to
make terrific progress

and he can no longer find
anything out of the ordinary.

He tells bill that if he'd not
known his medical history,

he would probably give him a
clean bill of health today.

[A quiet, echoing cave...

On his way to lunch, bill smiles
and thinks for the first time

that maybe everything will be...

[A sudden, ovennhelming
flood of electrical zaps,

[The wall of sound gives
way to beautiful music,

Bill was born
late Tuesday morning

into a world of orange and red.

He likes the way the aquamarine
rug feels across his hands.

He likes sunbeams...
And rockets...

And the smell of the
backyard in the early morning.

He likes tigers... and trees...

And melted
chocolate ice cream...

And watching the
lights while falling asleep

in the back seat.

[The whooshing sounds
of cars flying past...

[Electrical charges
and an elongated,

Someone sits on the shore

and tells him how the
waves have been there

long before bill existed...

And that they'll still be
there long after he's gone.

Bill looks out at the water

and thinks of all the
wonderful things

he will do with his life.

[Artificially
slowed-down music...

Female voice: "Bill?
Can you hear me, bill?"

Male voice: "Look at
me, bill. Look at me."

Nurse voice: "140 over 90."

Male voice: "Bill,
can you hear me?"

Female voice: "Bill?"

Male voice, getting distant:
"Bill, can you hear me?"

[The slow music

The last thing bill can remember

is speaking to
his ex-girlfriend...

Bird wings...

And the smell of black licorice.

[The beautiful
music grows darker,

[The music and
sounds suddenly stop,

He watches dust float across
the sunbeam above his head.

And then he goes back to sleep.

His roommate's name is Matthew,
a paralyzed young man

hidden by curtains

who communicates to the nursing
staff through a row of buttons

that can play five different
electronic sentences...

But more often than not,
he only presses one of them:

Electronic voice:
"I am in pain."

Every afternoon, the
reflections of sunlight

from the traffic below
cast colorful patterns

across their ceiling.

In the mornings, the
sunlight illuminates

Matthew's curtain and
makes it look beautiful

even though it's just gray.

His ex-girlfriend's
been visiting lately

and they talk for hours
about current events.

Sometimes they
eat ice cream bars.

It's the happiest
he's been in a long time.

[The simple music swells,
against light thunder

Bill is introduced
to a new doctor

and given a short interview.

He doesn't know
what month it is,

but he's aware
he's in a hospital.

He can't remember his address,

so he supposes he must
have always lived here.

His vision's a blurry, and
he no longer has strength

in the grip of his left hand.

Bill is asked to describe
a series of photographs.

He's able to put words to
many of these objects...

But is very confused
by some of the others.

He also has difficulty
distinguishing the faces

of people he knows.

All of these people
really just look the same.

And though he can recognize
his ex-girlfriend

because of her long hair...

He can't remember her name.

He tells the doctor

he has a fish living
inside of his head,

"possibly a trout."

It'll be another night
before it dawns on him

that something seems missing.

All the memories the doctor
asked him to recall today

are suddenly out of his grasp.

So many years of
faces and moments...

Are mostlyjust a
vague feeling now.

The years are slipping
out of his head.

Yesterday, a
gardener with a hose

blasted all the sparrow nests
from the second-story awning

of the building next door...

Raining mud and little broken
eggs into the parking lot.

Another test has been arranged

and bill is taken
to a white room.

A radiologist makes an incision

and pushes a catheter
into his femoral artery.

The catheter is carefully
pushed through his stomach

to his heart, up
through his chest,

and into his head, where a
special dye is introduced

to flood the blood vessels
in his brain for x-rays.

Bill is then asked to raise
his arms and count to twenty.

A powerful anesthetic
is introduced

to temporarily shut down the
left hemisphere of his brain.

And for the
remaining half of bill,

the test begi...

Woman's voice: "Bill?
Can you hear me?"

Woman's voice: "Bill, can
you look up here for me?

Can you tell me
what these objects are?"

Woman's voice: "Bill, can
you tell me what this is?"

Man's voice: "Bill, can you
add up these numbers for me?"

Woman's voice:
"You're doing great, bill."

Man's voice: "Okay.

And what do these
numbers add up to?"

Woman's voice: "Look at
me, bill, look at me.

Bill, look at me."

Man's voice: "Okay, bill, and
can you tell me who this is?"

Woman's voice: "It's okay,
bill, you're doing great."

Man's voice: "And can
you tell me who this is?"

Man's voice: "Bill, can
you tell me who this is?

Do you remember her?"

Today she's joined
by her boyfriend,

a young man named Steve who
spends most of the afternoon

in the corner quietly staring
at Matthew's curtain.

Electronic voice:
"I am in pain."

The doctor explains to her
that bill may be having trouble

understanding past tense
and present tense.

It may also be difficult
for bill to understand

which of his memories are
real, and which are imagined.

When the brain is confronted
with major memory loss,

it often fills in the blanks
with confabulated stories:

False memories, people
who never existed...

Invented conclusions to make
everyday life less confusing...

And to somehow rationalize
what's happening to him.

Todaythey will chat awkwardly.

Bill's been unable
to stay on one subject

for more than a few moments

and seems to get
easily frustrated.

She will say she didn't know

why she'd brought Steve
along yesterday,

and admits he'd been so shaken

by the experience that
he quietly cried in the car

on the way home.

The sparrows have
already begun to rebuild,

but he's not sure if he
feels happy or sad for them.

He dreams he's part
of a rocket crew,

re-entering the
earth's atmosphere.

As they rapidly
descend, it's believed

that eating ice cream bars
will help prevent them

from having strokes.

As the heat intensifies,
bill eats his ice cream bar

and secretly hopes that if
something bad had to happen,

the ship wouldn't explode,

but just that everyone
else would have strokes.

Afinal battery of
tests are ordered

to positively rule out
the chance of surgery.

Highly drugged, bill will have
no memory of these tests

other than a terrible
noise to his right...

And a brief vision
of a seahorse...

And a falling tree.

This morning he can't remember

the last time his ex-girlfriend
had come to visit.

It could be hours...
Or maybe it's been weeks.

His uncle, whom bill had not
even noticed in the room,

looks out the window and
talks about bill's mother.

Then he says, "it's too bad
people don't say how they feel

until it's already too late."

And then he says nothing.

The TV in the room
is always on mute

and behind his uncle's head,

bill watches a superhero
quietly melt a monster's face.

His doctor visits and asks if
bill might be more comfortable

at home for a few days
under family care,

until the final results come in.

A neighbor must have
put these groceries

in his apartment for him,

which was a very nice gesture.

It's kind of a
really nice day...

He decides to walk
around the block.

On the side of the road, he
sees a woman's tennis shoe

filled with leaves, and it fills
him with inexplicable sadness.

He walks down his side street...

Alongside the bridge
past the farmer's market...

And back up
the main thoroughfare.

It's kind of
a really nice day...

He decides to take a
walk around the block.

On the side of the road, he
sees a woman's tennis shoe

filled with leaves, and it fills
him with inexplicable sadness.

He walks down his side street...

Alongside the bridge
past the farmer's market...

And back up the
main thoroughfare.

It's kind of a
really nice day...

He decides to take a walk
around the blo...

Thathandis dropping everything.

Wasn't he supposed
to call somebody?

What was her name?

What in the hell is
wrong with this mug?

Does he really
need this much food?

There's a doctor on
his answering machine...

Has he been sick?

A doctor carefully explains
test results with him.

He goes over numbers
and information

that bill doesn't understand,
and reiterates things

that bill doesn't remember.

He's momentarily quiet...

And then tells bill he
doesn't have very long to live.

It's kind of a really nice day.

He decides to walk
around the block.

On the side of the road he sees

a woman's tennis shoe
filled with leaves,

and it fills him with
inexplicable sadness.

He walks down his side street
and sees striking colors

in the faces of the
people around him...

Details in these
beautiful brick walls

and weeds that he must
have passed every day

but never noticed.

The air smells different,

brighter somehow, and the
currents under the bridge

look strange and vivid and
the sun is warming his face

and the world is clumsy
and beautiful and new.

And it's as though
he's been sleepwalking,

asleep for god knows how long,

and something has
violently shaken him... awake.

His bathmats are gorgeous.

The grain patterns in
his cheap wood cabinets

vibrate something
deep within him.

He's fascinated by the way
his paper towels drink water.

He's never really
appreciated these things...

All this detail.

He's never noticed...

He's alive...

He's never noticed...

He's alive...

He's alive...

The stars rattle
him to the core...

How these lights
have travelled for tens

of millions of years to
reach him at this moment...

How somewhere far
away our own sun looks

just like one of these...

How many of the
stars no longer even exist,

but whose ancient light
is just reaching him now...

An impression from a ghost...

An amazing, infinite
time machine every night

above his head that he's
ignored for most of his life.

He wants to stop people
in the street and say,

"isn't this amazing?

Isn't everything amazing?"

He runs to the car rental place

and finds himself a
freeway and drives all night,

following directions in his head
to a place he can't remember...

Absorbing everything he can
before it all fades again

with the morning.

He's got the keys to this car.

He also has keys to a motel
room but he can't remember

the last time he slept.

He's sitting in the sun
outside of a laundromat.

An older guy in a baseball
cap stands at a pay phone

and nervously lifts and
hangs up the receiver.

He asks to borrow bill's pencil

and then places a
call to his daughter.

He tells her he loves her
and he's proud of her

and that one day soon,
"we'll finally have our day."

Then he says,
"fantastic, fantastic,

and hangs up the phone.

Although it looks like the wind

had been knocked out of him,

he presents the pencil back to
bill with a little flourish,

as though proud no
harm had come to it

while in his possession.

He dreams of fog on
the dark edge of a cliff,

where hundreds of feet below,

the deep sea swells
up against the rocks.

And if you lean over the
edge and squint your eyes

just right, you can barely
make out the gray shapes

of all the cars that had
driven off the cliff

over the years, sunken
deep beneath the surface.

And as each wave
washes slowly over them,

the undertow quietly
pulls their headlights

on and off...

On an endless loop, growing
slowly dimmer over the years

until the day comes that
they fade completely.

He's at a house now.

When he was little, he would run
through a house just like this

with a flashlight
pointed at the ceiling,

pretending he was an astronaut
soaring over the moon.

Afamiliar person's here.

He's not sure how he found him,

maybe he's been followed,
but they're talking now

and bill is given an address.

An address his mother never
wanted him to have, he says,

but it's important
bill have it now.

An address where he
can find his father.

Bill's real father.

A man who was gone
before he was born,

a man he'd only met once
but was too young to know it.

And he's driving again
now, for several hours,

he's not sure...

And with every mile he
loses a few more memories...

And he finds another motel,

and that night he eats
a lot of ice cream

and doesn't remember
his dreams at all...

He's in a nursing home...

Is he old?

A room full of windows...

And he gives a name on a paper
that's not in his handwriting

to the front counter...

And a frail old man is being
wheeled to see him now...

A man who's been
here for over ten years,

but rarely had a visitor.

Neither of these two people
remember why they're there,

or who exactly
this other person is.

But they sit and they
watch a game show together.

And when it's time
for bill to leave,

he stands and says
something beautiful to him.

And neither of them understand
what he means exactly,

but the old man
begins to cry anyway...

And they will never
see each other again.

He's driving a car.

And every time he
realizes he's driving a car,

he figures he should
just keep driving the car.

And sometimes he sings.

And sometimes he cries.

And the left side of
his body is beginning

to grow slack and numb.

And all he wants to do
is just keep driving,

somehow to keep on driving,

he has no more
directions to follow

but he fills the car with
gas again and again

and keeps going into the night,

he wants to keep going,
he wants to go forever...

It's such a beautiful day.

Wait a minute.

He's not going to die here...

But he doesn't die here.

No, no, no, no, no.

Bill, get up.

Bill?

Get up, bill.

No, he can't die here.

He's not gonna die here.

He can't ever die.

Bill?

Bill?

He will spend hundreds of
years traveling the world,

learning all there is to know.

He will learn every language.

He will read every book.

He will know every land.

He will spend thousands of years

creating stunning works of art.

He will learn to meditate
to control all pain.

As wars will be fought...

And great loves found...

."Andlost

and found...

Lost...

And found.

And found...

And found...

And memories built upon
memories until life runs

on an endless loop.

He will father hundreds of
thousands of children...

Whose own exponenfialofispnng

he'll slowly lose track
of through the years.

Whose millions of beautiful
lives will all eventually

be swept again from the earth.

And still, bill will continue.

He will learn more about life
than any being in history.

But death will forever
be a stranger to him.

People will come and go,

until names lose all meaning.

Until people lose all meaning

and vanish entirely
from the world.

And still, bill will live on.

He will befriend the next
inhabitants of the earth.

Beings of light who
revere him as a god.

And bill will outlive them all.

For millions and
millions of years.

Exploring, learning, living...

Until the earth is
swallowed beneath his feet.

Until the sun is
long since gone.

Until time loses all meaning
and the moment comes

that he knows only the
positions of the stars...

And sees them whether
his eyes are closed or open.

Until he forgets his name

and the place where
he'd once come from.

He lives and he lives,

until all of the lights go out.