I'm Thinking of Ending Things_2020
<script>
  <scene>
    <character>I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS</character>
    <dialogue>Screenplay by</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Charlie Kaufman Based on the novel by Iain Reid White Draft 2.20.19 Blue Rev. 2.25.19 Pink Rev. 3.8.19 Yellow Rev. 3.12.19 POV MONTAGE INT FARMHOUSE - KITCHEN - DAY - A young man's hand measures a spoonful of sugar into a cup of coffee, stirs. - As the coffee is sipped, a daytime TV talk show is watched.</scene_description>
    <character>TV HOST</character>
    <dialogue>Ladies and gentlemen, Flash Dance's Jennifer Beal!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Applause EXT RURAL ROAD - JANITOR'S TRUCK - DAY - Pick-up truck: The man's hands are on the steering wheel as he drives along a rural road.</scene_description>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <dialogue>So you've heard about this "gay plague?"</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 2</character>
    <dialogue>Just reading about it.</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <dialogue>Homosexuals, heroin addicts, hemophiliacs, and Haitians.</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 2</character>
    <dialogue>The 4H Club.</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <parenthetical>(laughing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Hey now!</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 2</character>
    <dialogue>But seriously, this is --</dialogue>
    <scene_description>EXT HIGH SCHOOL - PARKING LOT - DAY - The man trudges from the crowded parking lot toward a high school. INT HIGH SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY - He walks down an empty, silent school hall. A sudden loud burst of noise and activity as the bell rings and students spill from classrooms. SCENE OMITTED INT HIGH SCHOOL - HALLWAY - DAY - He mops a floor. INT HIGH SCHOOL - CLASSROOM - DAY - He empties trash cans. OMITTED OMITTED Night:</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>EXT. HIGH SCHOOL - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>- He trudges from the school to the lone vehicle, his pick-up truck, in the parking lot.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT/EXT. RURAL ROAD - PICK UP TRUCK - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>- In the pick-up, his hands on the steering wheel, he drives along rural road.</scene_description>
    <character>AM VOICE 3</character>
    <dialogue>So these healing pyramids, can you tell us how they work?</dialogue>
    <character>AM VOICE 4</character>
    <dialogue>Well, of course we don't really know the science at this point, but they appear to focus energy on the body through the Earth's magnetism.</dialogue>
    <character>AM VOICE 3</character>
    <dialogue>Fascinating.</dialogue>
    <character>AM VOICE 4</character>
    <dialogue>The pyramid is, of course, in the shape of the carbon atom, the basis of all life --</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARM HOUSE - SITTING ROOM - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>- The man watches TV, sipping at glass of whiskey. On the screen: Creepy music as POV of someone walks toward a suburban house and peers through a window at a girl asleep in bed. She awakens sees him, screams.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARMHOUSE BEDROOM - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>- From his bed, The man stares at the ceiling of a darkened bedroom. - Black. Day:</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARMHOUSE - KITCHEN - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>On TV: talk show.</scene_description>
    <character>TV HOST</character>
    <dialogue>Mr. Alan Alda!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Applause.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>A15 INT. HIGH SCHOOL HALL A15</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>Janitor mops floor in empty hallway.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT/EXT. RURAL ROAD - PICK UP TRUCK - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>In truck:</scene_description>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <dialogue>... and the Soviets just shot it right out of the sky.</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 2</character>
    <dialogue>269 people onboard. All dead.</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <dialogue>Korean Airline. A commercial flight, folks. It's indefensible.</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 2</character>
    <dialogue>It's payback time. That's for sure.</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT/EXT. RURAL ROAD - PICK UP TRUCK</stage_direction>
    <character>- NIGHT</character>
    <dialogue>In truck:</dialogue>
    <character>AM VOICE 3</character>
    <dialogue>So what was it like?</dialogue>
    <character>AM VOICE 5</character>
    <dialogue>Well, I was awake, but I couldn't move and then this -- I don't know what to call it -- tractor beam pulled me up into the ship and I found myself naked on some sort of examination table --</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARMHOUSE - SITTING ROOM - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>On TV: Scene from film in which people at a dinner party are laughing too long and hard.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARMHOUSE - BEDROOM - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>In bed, the man stares at the ceiling. Day:</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARMHOUSE - KITCHEN - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>On TV:</scene_description>
    <character>TV HOST</character>
    <dialogue>John Candy!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Applause.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT/EXT. RURAL ROAD - PICK UP TRUCK - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>In Truck:</scene_description>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <dialogue>You heard about this cannibal they arrested?</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 2</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. What is it with Russians and cannibalism?</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <dialogue>52 people.</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 2</character>
    <dialogue>He must've been really hungry!</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>A21 INT. HIGH SCHOOL BATHROOM - DAY A21</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>Janitor is scrubbing a sink.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT/EXT. RURAL ROAD - PICK UP TRUCK - NIGHT 21 \*</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>In Truck:</scene_description>
    <character>AM VOICE 3</character>
    <dialogue>And what did the apparition say?</dialogue>
    <character>AM VOICE 6</character>
    <dialogue>That all life is interconnected, and people, with their massive egos, cannot see that --</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARMHOUSE - SITTING ROOM - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>On TV: A young man stands outside and apartment and calls up to window.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <dialogue>Eleanor! I love you!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Day:</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT/EXT. RURAL ROAD - PICK UP TRUCK - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>In truck:</scene_description>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <dialogue>So Aum Shinrikyo, am I pronouncing that right?</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 2</character>
    <dialogue>I read about this! Sarin gas!</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <dialogue>On the subway! 13 dead and over 5000 injured.</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <dialogue>Nutjobs. What is wrong with people?</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>A24 INT. HIGH SCHOOL HALL - DAY A24</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>Janitor is mopping alone.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT/EXT. RURAL ROAD - PICK UP TRUCK - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>In truck:</scene_description>
    <character>AM VOICE 7</character>
    <dialogue>The angels are here. They are all around us. And they're here to help.</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARMHOUSE - SITTING ROOM - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>On TV: A young woman looks at her ringing cellphone. She seems terrified.</scene_description>
    <character>2ND YOUNG WOMAN (O.C.)</character>
    <dialogue>What's wrong? Who is it?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's me. I'm calling.</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>A26 INT. HIGH SCHOOL - DAY (MONTAGE) A26</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>This day/night sequence repeats again and again, with only slight variations (mostly in the janitorial tasks). The big change comes in the hands, which over time, get old: liver spotted, wrinkled, arthritic, the occasional Band Aid on one or another of the fingers. The image itself, through his POV, degrades, as well, becoming softer, dimmer, less vibrant. The sound becomes less distinct and by a constant whispery hum. (Note: Throughout the remainder of the film, there is a constant whisper under everything, sometimes the wind, sometimes a voice, sometimes both. On occasion, it will resolve into the Voice-Over of the Young Woman, then back to a vague, inarticulate whisper).</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>B26 INT/EXT. - RURAL ROAD - PICK UP TRUCK - DAY (MONTAGE) B26</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>-Janitor drives. AM Radio Montage.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>C26 INT. HIGH SCHOOL HALL &amp; BATHROOM - DAY (MONTAGE) C26</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>- Janitor walks hallway, Students pass by him.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>D26 INT. HIGH SCHOOL - CAFETERIA - KITCHEN D26</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>- Janitor in silhouette works in kitchen.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>E26 INT. PICK UP TRUCK &amp; LIVING RM - NIGHT E26</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>As the montage speeds up, the radio and TV snippets get shorter and closer together, until they seem to form one thought.</scene_description>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <dialogue>Hey, Listen to --</dialogue>
    <character>TV CHARACTER</character>
    <dialogue>...me... you. Aren't --</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 2</character>
    <dialogue>Welcome! Here on --</dialogue>
    <character>AM VOICE 3</character>
    <dialogue>-- this planet --</dialogue>
    <character>TV NEWS ANCHOR</character>
    <dialogue>-- People, don't --</dialogue>
    <character>AM VOICE 4</character>
    <dialogue>-- want to --</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 2</character>
    <dialogue>-- see. You --</dialogue>
    <character>AM RADIO VOICE 1</character>
    <dialogue>-- any --</dialogue>
    <character>ACTOR IN MOVIE</character>
    <parenthetical>(looking into camera)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>-- more --</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>F26/G26 INT. FARMHOUSE - SITTING RM./BEDROOM - NIGHT (MONTAGE)F26/G26</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>- Janitor watches TV, Montage snippets - Janitor stares at darkened ceiling \* - Black.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARM HOUSE DINING ROOM - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>Everything is slower now. The Janitor's POV takes in the environment as it moves toward the table with a cup of coffee. The room is neat but old, slightly tattered, the drapes are heavy and oppressive. It feels airless, a place with endlessly wandering ghosts. The Janitor once again places the coffee on the dining room table, sits, scoops sugar from a bowl, dumps it in the coffee, stirs, turns on the small portable TV on the table. Snow on the screen. He switches the channel and a young couple appears, engaging, to a bouncy musical score, in a happy dating montage. The man sips at his coffee and watches for a long moment, checks his watch, stands, heads to the kitchen. The bouncy music continues but recedes as he walks away from the TV. The whispering builds.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARM HOUSE KITCHEN - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor brings the cup and spoon to the sink and washes them. He glances out the window above the sink at the world outside. It is a gray, windy winter day. Old, crusty snow on the ground. A rusted swing set sits in the yard, the swings creaking in the wind. He dries the dishes, puts them away, scans the kitchen for anything out of place. He refolds a poorly folded dishrag, hangs it from its hook, spends a moment to even it out. He exits the kitchen. INT DINING ROOM - DAY The Janitor passes the still turned-on TV, glances at it. The couple are in a field, on their backs and under a blanket, looking up at the night sky.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG TV MAN</character>
    <dialogue>How did we ever find each other in all this vastness? Almost makes a scientist like me believe in destiny.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Almost makes an artist like me believe in scientists.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He laughs. They kiss. The Janitor has passed the TV and makes his way upstairs.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARMHOUSE BATHROOM - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor brushes his teeth, never looking at his reflection in the mirror.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>EXT. FARM HOUSE - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor exits the house, which is weathered. He carries a paper lunch bag and thermos. The wind whistles. He climbs into the pick-up truck, turns the ignition key.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. RURAL ROAD - PICK UP TRUCK - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor drives the quiet rural road. The radio is on.</scene_description>
    <character>HOST 1</character>
    <dialogue>Better get those chains on, folks!</dialogue>
    <character>HOST 2</character>
    <dialogue>Storm of the century!</dialogue>
    <character>HOST 1</character>
    <dialogue>Global warming, my Ass-troturf!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>An old fashioned ah-ooga car horn sound effect.</scene_description>
    <character>HOST 1</character>
    <dialogue>It's fricking freezing!</dialogue>
    <character>HOST 2</character>
    <dialogue>That's the thing about the libs. They live in a fantasy world.</dialogue>
    <character>HOST 1</character>
    <dialogue>I'd say we could use some global warming right about now. On the way here, I nearly froze off my Dick- taphone.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Ah-ooga!</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>EXT. HIGH SCHOOL - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor, lunch bag and thermos in hand, crunches on the hard snow.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. SCHOOL HALLWAY - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor makes his way through the empty hall. The bell sounds, sudden and loud, and the hall is filled with raucous students. The Janitor is invisible to them as they carelessly maneuver their way around him. He watches their faces, their interactions, their youth, their romances, their enthusiasm. He spots the outliers: the lonely, the ugly, the desperately sad.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. CUSTODIAN'S ROOM - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor opens his locker, places his lunch and thermos on the shelf, and removes his shirt, revealing a sagging, old man's torso. He changes into a dark work shirt emblazoned with the school's name. He closes the locker, organizes the supplies on his cart, rolls it to the door, and waits until the voices of the students peter out. Then he opens the door, wheels the cart into the mostly empty hall.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. HALL - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>There are only a few student stragglers. The Janitor pushes the cart, wheels it into the first classroom.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. CLASSROOM ONE - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>THE JANITOR EMPTIES THE ROOM'S TRASH CANS INTO THE LARGE ONE ON HIS CART. HE WIPES A DUST RAG ALONG THE TABLE TOPS AND THE WINDOW LEDGE. OUTSIDE SNOW HAS STARTED TO FALL. HE WATCHES THE SNOW, SEEMINGLY TRANSFIXED.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>EXT. BROWNSTONE STREET - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>A Young Woman waits. She is dressed for the cold, her quirky, adorable outfit topped with a cheerily colorful wool beanie. She looks both ways down the street, waiting for someone. She notices the snowflakes, and playfully tries to catch a few on her tongue. Suddenly, she feels self-conscious, glances around to see if she is being watched, peering into dark apartment windows. She spots a young man driving toward her. This is Jake. A fleeting look of worry passes across her face, then she smiles, waves enthusiastically. He smiles back, waves, pulls to a stop in front of her. She opens the door.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's snowing!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Winter is icummen in.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Goddamn!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>They laugh. She climbs into the car. They kiss.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. CAR - DAY</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>They drive through a university town; it is oddly underpopulated. She looks out the window. Although her outfit is the same, the colors seem more subdued now. Jake watches the road. She glances over at him, takes in his face in profile. Feeling her eyes on him, he glances over. She smiles. He smiles self-consciously, looks back at the road. She flips down her sun visor, opens the mirror, the mirror is \* missing, she flips the visor back up. Her mood has turned \* somber. The whispering sound increases in volume.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I'm thinking of ending things.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Huh?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What's that?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Did you say something?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(laughing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>No. I don't think so.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Weird.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ha. Yeah.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Car ghosts.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(playfully)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Spooooky.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Ha. Yeah.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Boo!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ha.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence. She looks out the window.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I'm thinking of ending things.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake glances over again. She doesn't make eye contact. He looks back to road.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>What's the point of carrying on like this? I know what it is, where it's going. Jake is a nice guy, but... It's not going anywhere. I've known this for a while now. Maybe it's human nature to keep going even in the face of this knowledge. The alternative requires too much energy, decisiveness. People stay in unhealthy relationships because it's easier. It's basic physics. An object in motion tends to stay in motion; people tend to stay in relationships past their expiration date. Newton's first law of emotion.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Do you want to stop for a coffee or something? A snack? It's going to get pretty farmy pretty fast now.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh. No. I'm fine.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You sure?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I don't want to spoil my appetite!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Ok.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence. She studies his hands on the steering wheel. He self- consciously takes the one closest to her from the wheel, and slips it into his jacket pocket.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Y'know, my mother hasn't been feeling well recently. So...</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm sorry.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'm just saying that there might not be much of a spread. She might not be up to a lot of cooking.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>She hasn't been well.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm sorry to hear that. What's going on with --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'm just saying, if you want to stop for a snack, it would probably be fine. In terms of appetite spoiling. In terms of the amount of food she might have prepared. It might even be advisable.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm fine.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Ok.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>They really are looking forward to meeting you.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I don't want to give you the wrong impression. I've told them a lot about you.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(looking over at Jake)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>That's nice to hear. I'm looking forward to meeting them, too.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She looks out the window.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>Maybe it's unfair of me to be going on this trip with Jake. When I'm so uncertain about our future. Our lack of it. After all, going to meet your boyfriend's parents is the proverbial next step, isn't it? The truth is, I haven't even told my parents I'm dating Jake. I've never mentioned him. And I don't think I ever will. I guess that says a lot about my intentions.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's just that she hasn't been feeling well. So...</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm sorry. Getting old ain't for sissies, as Bette Davis said.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>True. Although one might take issue with her use of the word sissy as a pejorative.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Of course. Yes. A different time.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I guess it's curiosity. Jake is certainly hard to figure. Maybe it's like a window into his origins. The child being father of the man, and all.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Oh, are you a fan of Wordsworth then, by chance?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Wordsworth?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>William Wordsworth? The poet?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm not familiar, really. Why do you ask?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I was just thinking about him, for some reason. He popped into my head. His poem Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, to be specific.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Jesus, that's the title? Seems like an entire poem.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Ha. Yeah.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence. She silently counts syllables.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I tried to make it into a haiku. Too many syllables. Damn.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Ha. You get your words' worth with Wordworth.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ha.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>You want to hear how it starts?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ok. Sure.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>As Jake recites, the young woman watches the passing bleak farmland.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(reciting)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,/The earth, and every common sight,/To me did seem/Apparell'd in celestial light,/The glory and the freshness of a dream./It is not now as it hath been of yore;-/Turn wheresoe'er I may,/By night or</dialogue>
    <dialogue>day,/The things which I have seen I now can see no more.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Huh. Well, that's heavy. Sad.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It goes on like that. More or less.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You recite it well. I like your voice.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I guess, there's hope in it, too. But... I dunno, maybe they have to do that, give people something.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I confess, I haven't read a lot of poetry. I guess, I mostly don't understand it.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(joking)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I'm not a metaphorical-type gal.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's just that that one speaks to me.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Incidentally, Wordsworth wrote a series of poems to a woman named Lucy.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Like me!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Exactly. A beautiful, idealized woman who dies young.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yikes.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Ha. Well, the comparison goes only as far as your name.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Phew.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>And that you are ideal, of course.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(uneasily)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Aw. That's sweet.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She smiles at him. Silence. A phone rings, loud, surprising. Urgently, the Young Woman fishes in the bag by her feet, finds the phone, pulls it out, checks the caller: Lucy. \*\*YOUNG WOMAN APPEARANCE CHANGE\*\* \*</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Who's that?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Just a friend. I'm not going to answer.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You can. I don't mind. You should.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's ok.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I don't mind.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She drops the phone back in her bag.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Mysterious.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What's that?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>A friend.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ha. Not really. Someone from class.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She looks out the window at depressed and abandoned farms. She sees a collapsed farm house with a brand new swing set in the front yard. It's jarring.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>That's odd.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>What's that?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Did you see that swing set?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>What swing set?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>We just passed it.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Nope. Missed it.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It was weird. This beautiful new swing set in front of an abandoned house.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I didn't see it.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Why would that be there? Clearly no one has lived in that house for years. Decades.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I didn't see it.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Maybe someone is moving in and they brought the swing set first? That's all I can think of.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I suppose.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>That seems an unlikely sequence of events.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Well, I didn't see it.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Like to have something to entertain the kids while the parents are getting the house ready?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Huh. Yeah.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Odd.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Who knows?</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>They're saying there might be a fair amount of snow.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>They're predicting it.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Do you think we should maybe turn back? I've got a fair amount -- a lot actually -- of work to do tomorrow. I need to be able to get home tonight, so I can get to it first thing.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I think we'll be ok. I've got tire chains in the trunk.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(dubious)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Ok.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>What are you working on?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh, um, I have a paper due Wednesday.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Which one is this?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Susceptibility to rabies infection in the sensory dorsal root ganglia neurons.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Right. The trigeminal ganglia, as well, right?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes. Exactly. \*</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Point for me. Interested in and knowledgeable about my girlfriend's work.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She reacts to the "my girlfriend."</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Point for Jake.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>How's the paper going?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's nowhere, actually. I really do have to get back tonight. Deal with it first thing.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'll get you home. Chains.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Chains.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I do like Jake. And he's educated. Our fields are different, but he's curious and keeps up. That's a good thing. That's in the pro column.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She smiles over at Jake. He smiles back, seemingly relieved.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>And he's cute. In his awkward way. We are interesting together, as well. People look at us when we're together. Who's that couple? I don't get looked at alone. Not much. And Jake doesn't either, he tells me. Maybe that's the way it is in general for guys. No one looks at them. But Jake has told me he feels it, feels invisible.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Want to listen to something?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He has white crust in the corner of his mouth. She fixates on it.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm sorry, what?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He wipes away the crust, as if he knows she's seeing it.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I asked if you want to listen to some music.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh. Sure.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake switches on the radio, dials through the static.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>When you get out this far, there's not much signal.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He finds a station playing Many a New Day from the musical Oklahoma! The reception is iffy, giving the music an almost underwater burble and, in addition, it sounds amateurish, performed by high school students.</scene_description>
    <character>SINGER</character>
    <dialogue>Many a new face will please my eye/ Many a new love will find me/Never have I once looked back to sigh/ Over the romance behind me/Many a new day will dawn/Before I do</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>This is an odd song. Out here in the middle of nothing.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's from Oklahoma! The musical.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Apt.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Indeed.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I didn't realize you were a fan of musical theater. You're full of surprises.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'm not really. Into musicals, I mean. I may be full of surprises though. That's not for me to say. Anyway, I just know a few musicals. Oklahoma!, Phantom, Carousel, South Pacific, Guys and Dolls, Flower Drum Song, Wicked...</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying...</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>The Music Man, Pajama Game, Cabaret,...</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>The Lion King, Grease, The King and I, The Sound of Music, Pal Joey, Charley's Aunt, On the Town...</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>My Fair Lady. But I know Oklahoma! best, I guess. They do it every few years. For obvious reasons.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Wait, who does it every few years?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Sometimes I see kids who were in past productions, y'know, at the supermarket, working at stores in town. Older now.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>INT HIGH SCHOOL AUDITORIUM - AFTERNOON The Janitor sweeps between the seats, while on stage a rehearsal for Oklahoma! is in progress. High school girls dance around the girl playing Laurey, as she sings along with an inept orchestra. A high school-quality farm house set squats on the stage behind them. A teenage girl, dressed as an old lady, sits on a rocker on the porch.</scene_description>
    <character>SINGER</character>
    <dialogue>Many a light lad may kiss and fly/ A kiss gone by is bygone/Never have I asked an August sky/Where has last July gone?/Never have I wandered through the rye/Wondering where has some guy gone/Many a new day will dawn/Before I do</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. CAR - AFTERNOON</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>Jake and the Young Woman listen to the song.</scene_description>
    <character>SINGER</character>
    <dialogue>Never have I chased the honeybee/ Who carelessly cajoled me/Somebody else just as sweet as he/Cheered and then consoled me</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Well, this girl seems healthy enough in her attitude. Good for her.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>She's protesting too much, it turns out. She misses Curly.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(laughing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Curly? From The Three Stooges?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Different Curly.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>We've all been there.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Where?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Protesting too much about how ok everything is.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>True.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake watches the road in silence. Then:</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>That's why I like road trips. It's always good to remind yourself that the world is larger than the inside of your own head. Y'know?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(tapping her temple)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Perspective.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Perspective.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It is pretty out here. In a heartbroken, bleak kind of way.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The song continues. The young woman stares out the window. \*\* \* YOUNG WOMAN APPEARANCE CHANGE \*</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>What was the last road trip I took? I should remember, but I don't. Nothing is coming to mind.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>It's odd. I am foggy about so many things lately.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>So you like this type of landscape?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's beautiful, yes. Melancholy. I do like that.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's the poet in you.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ha. Yeah. I suppose so. Maybe.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You been working on anything?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I just finished one. I don't know.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Can I hear it?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You can read it.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I like to hear them in your voice. You're so good at reciting them.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Not really, but thanks.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It'll go with the poetic scenery.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I don't know, Jake. I don't much feel like performing right --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>C'mon. It'll pass the time.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(laughing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Ok. I don't want you to be bored.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>It's called Bonedog. As she recites, the camera studies her face, drifts several times from her to the passing bleak landscape and back, each time seeing her slightly differently: lipstick where there had been none, a slightly different hairstyle, glasses, no glasses, different glasses. \*\*YOUNG WOMAN APPEARANCE CHANGE \* x4\*\* \*</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Coming home is terrible./ Whether the dogs lick your/face or not; whether you/have a wife or just a wife-/shaped loneliness waiting/for you, coming home/is terribly lonely so/that you will even think/of the oppressive barometric/pressure back/where you have just come/from with fondness/because everything is worse/once you're home./You will think of the/vermin clinging to the/grass stalks, long hours/on the road, roadside/assistance and ice creams/and the peculiar shapes/of certain clouds/and silences/with longing/because you did not want/to return;/coming home is just/awful, and the homestyle/silences and clouds/contribute to nothing/but the general/malaise. The clouds,/such as they are,/are in fact suspect/and made from a different/material than those/you left behind./You yourself are cut/from a different/cloudy cloth,/ returned, remaindered,/ill-met by moonlight,/unhappy to be back,/slack in all the wrong/spots, seamy suit/of clothes, dishrag- /ratty, worn.</dialogue>
    <dialogue>You return home/moonlanded, foreign/the earth's gravitational/pull an effort now redoubled/dragging your shoelaces/loose and your shoulders,/etching deeper the/ stanza of worry/on your forehead,/ you return/home deepened,/a parched well,/linked to tomorrow/by a frail strand of/anyway:/you sigh/into the onslaught/of identical days, one/might as well/at a time.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Well, anyway,/you're back,/the sun/ goes up/and down like a/tired whore,/the weather immobile/as a broken limb/while you just keep/ getting older./Nothing moves/but the shifting tides/of salt in your body./Your vision blears./You carry your weather/with you, big/blue whale, a/skeletal darkness;/you've come back/with X-ray vision;/your eyes have become/a hunger./You come home/with your mutant gifts/to a house of bone.</dialogue>
    <dialogue>Everything you see now./All of it. Bone.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence. \*\*YOUNG WOMAN APPEARANCE CHANGE\*\* \*</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Wow.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(laughing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>"Wow" is pretty much an all-purpose exclamation, I just realized. It could mean you loved it or that there are no other words to describe how rubbish it is.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I love it. That's what it means.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah? I don't know.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's amazing. I feel like it's about me. Like completely.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Well, thanks. I guess that's the thing one hopes for when writing a poem.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>What's that?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Some universality in the specific? I don't know.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. A feeling of connection. It's like you wrote it about me. I don't know how you do it.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Do what?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Think in words without setting those thoughts in stone. Use language not to corral the world, but to set it free.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Wow.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>They both laugh at her use of the word "wow."</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Anyway, I don't know that I do all that, but thanks.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You really do. It's a marvel.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>A marvel, no less! Well, thanks.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Sure.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You're very sweet.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman looks out the window.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I'm thinking of ending things. Jake is really great. He's sensitive. He listens to me. He's smart. There's just something... ineffable? Profoundly, unutterably, unfixably wrong here. I almost wish he were horrible, some monster, that he beat me, that he was a drunk, that he ignored me. Then my decision would be clear.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She looks over at Jake. He glances back, fearful.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>But he's just not right. And no amount of more time will fix that.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Is something wrong? I'm feeling --</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>No.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You seem sort of far away, is all.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Just thinking.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>About what?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(considering, stalling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>About what? Hmm. I don't know. Just vague "in my head" stuff.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I guess maybe I was thinking about time.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Really?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>How it's in charge of us, like we're on a train and it takes us where it takes us. There's no veering off. No side trips. And like Mussolini's trains; it runs on time.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I read that it's not really true about Mussolini and trains. The improvements in the railway system preceded him. He just took credit. And even so, they still didn't always run on time.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Huh. I guess that's not really where I was going with that analogy. Not really about Mussolini.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Anyway, you can always jump off a train, right?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>In movies, maybe. In real life you will likely die jumping from a moving train.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>That's true, I suppose. I watch too many movies. That's very true.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Everyone does. A societal malady.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I fill my brain with lies to pass the time. And it does pass -- in the blink of an eye. An eye blink in excruciatingly slow motion.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's like the rabies virus attaching itself to our ganglia, then changing us into itself.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Viruses are monstrous.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Everything wants to live, Jake. Viruses are just one more example of everything.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I suppose.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Even crappy, fake movie ideas want to live. They grow in your brain, replacing your real ideas. That's what makes them dangerous.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>But did you know there are insects that blow themselves up? So there's that. Not everything wants to live.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes. Certain ants, certain aphids.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>For the good of their communities.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Suicide bombers.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>So not everything wants to live.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>True. Well, they want their communities to live, which is sort of like themselves writ large.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>And, also, we don't know if they really want anything. It's more likely just how they're programmed.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Maybe we're all programmed. Right?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He looks at her for some kind of confirmation. The Young Woman glances over at him and makes a gesture and noise as if she's exploding. They laugh.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Now we're both dead.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>For the good of the community.</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. HIGH SCHOOL BATHROOM - EVENING</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>Janitor cleans the bathroom sinks. There is a stage make-up book open to OLD AGE make-up techniques, some open make-up containers, and a white old lady wig. OMITTED OMITTED 45pt1,2 INT. JAKE'S CAR - EVENING 45pt1,2 Jake and the Young Woman pull off the road onto a dark, dirt driveway. \*\*YOUNG WOMAN APPEARANCE CHANGE\*\* \*</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Ta-dah.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>This is it?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You sound disappointed.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Well, no. It's just... there's nothing here.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's here. This is the driveway. The house is set a ways back.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The driveway is long and bumpy with potholes. They make their way to the house in silence, park. It is the farmhouse the Janitor lives in. She studies the house, illuminated by the headlights. Jake looks over at her, trying to gauge her reaction. The house is completely dark. There are no other cars in the driveway.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You hate it.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>No! It just looks like no one is home. Are you sure we have the right --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Of course it's the right house. I mean, Jesus --</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I was going to say "night." Are you sure we have the right night? There are no lights on; there's no car.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>45pt3 EXT. FARM HOUSE - NIGHT 45pt3 \* A few lights turn on inside, one illuminating an older American sedan that had been hidden in the shadows.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Well, shall we? \*</dialogue>
    <scene_description>They open the car door and exit. \* \*:</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>EXT. FARM HOUSE - EVENING</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The snow falls hard. Jake looks at the house. A silhouetted woman watches them from an upstairs window. Jake waves. She waves back. The Young Woman waves shyly. The woman waves back. Jake waves again. The silhouetted woman waves again.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>So I'm not ready to go in. I need to stretch my legs. Long legs. Long drive.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Is that rude? I mean, she clearly know we're here. We were all waving at each other for quite a while.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Nah. They know I like to stretch my legs. C'mon, I'll show you around.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's cold and getting dark, Jake.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'll give you the abridged tour.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>\*:</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>A47 INT/EXT BARN - EVENING A47 \*</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>Jake and Young Woman walk towards barn.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I used to love to be outside here \* when I was a kid. The stars are amazing here when it's not cloudy. I would lie on my back and look at them for hours. I don't know when I stopped doing that. It's weird, there was a last time I did that and I didn't know at the time that it would be. Isn't that interesting? The last time you do something is often a secret from you at the time.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It is interesting.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>They park and walk towards the barn.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Maybe we'll come back in the spring and we can lie out here and look up at the universe. Then whenever that was won't have been my last time. My last time will be with you.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>That sounds nice.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I do like that Jake once had this side to him. A child filled with wonder. He's so burdened now, which makes me sad, and is made all the more heartbreaking knowing that there is still an innocent child buried under all that.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>They arrive at an old barn.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>The sheep are in here. I'd say we could feed them, but Dad probably gave them some grain --</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(checks watch)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>-- about an hour ago. So... But we can go in and say hi.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake enters the barn. The Young Woman follows.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Hi, sheep.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Hi, sheep.</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. BARN - EVENING</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>It's darker in here, but the sheep are visible in silhouette. There is the sound of rustling and breathing and chewing.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>There's something dreary and sad in here. And it smells. I wonder what it must be like to be a sheep, to spend one's entire life in this miserable, smelly place, doing nothing. Eating. Shitting. Sleeping. Over and over.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>They're always chewing like that. It's their cud.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What's cud?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Semi-digested food. They regurgitate it and chew it. Sheep gum.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yum. Sheep gum.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(brightly)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Well, there you have it: the sheep. \*</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake leads the way out.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. BARN - EVENING 48 \*</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>They pass three stacked dead lambs. Jake walks right past, without acknowledging them. The Young Woman stops to look. She hurries to catch up.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What will happen to the lambs?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>What?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>The lambs.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Oh, those dead ones?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake keeps walking, says nothing. She follows. \*</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(impatient)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I don't know what you're asking. They're already dead. What else can happen to them?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I mean, will they be buried?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Probably be burned come spring. But they're frozen solid for now. So.. They're fine. No worries. C'mon, I'll show you the old pen where they used to keep the pigs. They don't keep pigs anymore.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ok.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Because pigs are hard to keep.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>They arrive at the empty pig pen. The young woman looks toward the house in the distance.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>They had to put them down.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Uh-huh. That's too bad.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Rotten situation. The pigs. Life isn't always pretty on a farm. Something you should know. \*</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake just waits.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(feeling forced to ask)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>So, what happened?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>To the pigs? Forget it. I don't think you'd like this story.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You have to tell me now. You can't do that.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes! Jesus.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Ok. Well, my father hadn't been in to check on the pigs for a few days. My parents were busy. He'd just toss their food into the pen. But after a few days, he noticed they were just lying in the same corner all the time. So he went inside to check on them. They didn't look well. He decided he'd better try to move them. And they're heavy -- I mean, they're pigs, right? -- but he finally moved one and discovered that its entire underside was filled with maggots. Both pigs were being eaten alive. Life on a farm can be \* brutal. Should we go in? It's cold. \*</dialogue>
    <character>\*</character>
    <dialogue>\*</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake walks; the Young Woman follows. \*</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>One likes to think there is always hope. It is a uniquely human fantasy that things will get better, born, perhaps, of the uniquely human understanding that things will not. There's no way to know for certain, but I suspect humans are the only animals that know the inevitability of their own death. Other animals live in the present. Humans cannot. So they invented hope. \*</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake leads the way. \* 49 OMITTED 49 \* \*:</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. STAIRWELL - EVENING</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor mops up a pile of vomit.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. HOUSE - FOYER - EVENING</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>Jake and the Young Woman stand in the entrance in their stocking feet. The room is neat, homey. No one is around.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Hello?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>No answer.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'm here! We're here!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>No answer.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's Jake!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER (O.S.)</character>
    <dialogue>We'll be down in a minute!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Ok!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(to young woman)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Do you want slippers? Floors are cold here. Old houses.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. Thanks.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake sifts through a wooden trunk of hats, scarves, gloves.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>They'll be big on you. They're my old ones. But they're warm.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Sounds good.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake pulls out the same blue slippers the Janitor had been wearing.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>And voila.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Great.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She puts them on. Jake closes the trunk.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh, none for you? You should take these. They're yours!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>What kind of gentleman would that make me? My slippers are your slippers.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You sure?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I am. Mis zapatillas son tus zapatillas. Have a seat.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake gestures toward the couch.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>They'll be right down.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She slides in the too-large slippers toward the couch, sits. Jake remains standing, looking anxiously up the stairs.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Music?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Sure.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake walks over to the phonograph, puts something on, and music starts up, too quickly, slightly off. The music is some sort of musical number on a scratchy album. It's hard to tell what it is; it's far away and vague, more like a song remembered than heard. Cut to</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>A52 INT. HIGH SCHOOL HALLWAY - EVENING A52</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>- Same music plays but more clearly, as Male &amp; Female H.S. Student practice the dream ballet from Oklahoma. The Janitor \* wheels a trash can past them down the hall. 52pt. 1 INT. FARM HOUSE - SITTING ROOM - EVENING 52pt. 1 He looks up the stairs again. Then:</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>So the bedrooms are upstairs. Not much else. My mom's sewing room. A bathroom. Linen closet. I can show you after we eat, if you like. It's not fancy, as you can see. An old place. Not much up there.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's nice. I like it.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Reminds me of the house I grew up in.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I suppose all farm houses are alike.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Like all happy families.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake nods.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'm not sure Tolstoy got that one right.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence. Jake looks toward the stairs.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Happiness in a family is as nuanced as unhappiness.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Well, I think he was really talking about marriage, in that --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>And here they come.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>They don't.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'll get a fire going in the meantime.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake fiddles with the fire place for a moment and there is a roaring fire, a little too quickly.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Your parents knew we were coming, right? I mean, they invited us.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Invitation sounds a little too formal for my family, but, yeah, of course. We communicated.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ok, cool.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Fire feels good. Cozy.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake sits, but rigidly, as if ready to spring into action. The young woman spots a scratched up, ragged, closed door.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What's in there?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>The basement. \*</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I see.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>We keep it closed off, mostly. Old houses tend to be drafty.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Right.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Anyway, the basement is unfinished. A hole in the ground, really.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>A hole in the ground?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Well... unfinished. Just the water heater. Washer and dryer. Stuff \* like that. We don't use it really for anything else. Never did.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ok.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>More or less a waste of space.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I hate the basement, if you want to know.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You have intense feelings about it.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(pulling back on reaction)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>You know, when you're a kid, basements are scary.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>We didn't have one. Living in an apartment. But I've seen enough scary movies to get the idea.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(joking)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Don't look in the basement!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(laughing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Exactly. He's hiding down there!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ha.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Who?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>What?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What are the scratches on the door?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Dog. From the dog. Mostly.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh! I love dogs! I didn't know your parents have one. I can usually tell when there's a dog in someone's house. Toys lying around.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>My folks are tidy.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Where is it? What kind? What's its name?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>So many questions! Jimmy. He's a mutt. Probably outside. He always loved the snow.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jimmy, covered in snow, galumphs in, pushing with his nose through the swinging kitchen door. He runs up to and jumps onto Jake, licks his face, then onto the young woman.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(laughing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Hi, Jimmy! Ew, he's all wet!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jimmy shakes himself off, spraying Jake and the Young Woman. She laughs. His shaking goes on for an oddly long time. She stops laughing, watches puzzled.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>That's --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>And here they come!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>52pt. 2 INT. FARM HOUSE - FOYER/SITTING ROOM - EVENING 52pt. 2 \* The parents are coming down the stairs. The Father is tall and rangy; he has a Band Aid on his forehead. The Mother small and birdlike.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Hi! Welcome!</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>The drive ok?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. Fine.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>They pass the table, which is now laden with an extravagant meal of ham, potatoes, corn, salad, and various Jello mold concoctions. The Mother hugs the Young Woman.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>So glad to meet you, Louisa! Jake has told us so much about you.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh! He's told me so much about both of you, too!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Mother appears to have a permanent smile on her face.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh dear! And you came anyway?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Mother laughs at her joke, and everyone else with the exception of Jake joins in. Jake seems tense.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Let's eat already! Or the food will get as cold as a witch's tit in a brass brassiere!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>52pt. 3 INT. FARM HOUSE DINING ROOM - EVENING 52pt. 3 \* The parents and Jake are somehow almost immediately seated. It takes the Young Woman a moment longer to arrive at her place -- sliding in her too-big slippers -- and sit, and even though the parents are still smiling, there is a strain of impatience on their faces. Jake looks down at his plate.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It smells great.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>I hope you're hungry. All homemade. Everything you see on the table is from the farm.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman glances at the ham, then Jake. He is looking down, shaking his head.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Looks great.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Food is passed around and shoveled on plates. The Young Woman notices that the mother's big toe has no nail.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>So Jake tells us you're a painter?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes. Jake tells you correctly.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I don't really know much about art, but I like pictures where you know what you're looking at.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(into his plate)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Dad. For Christ's sake.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>What do you call it -- abstract? -- I don't get that. I mean, I could do abstract, smear paint on a, what is it called -- a canvas? -- I think it's a con job, if you ask me. I like paintings that look like a photograph. I couldn't do one of those in a million years. That's talent.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Why not just take a photograph, Dad, if you like photographs? It's much quicker. And photographs look exactly like photographs.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I like photographs. Mostly sports photographs. \*</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <parenthetical>(to young woman)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>What kind of paintings do you make, Lucy?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Um, Well, I'm not an abstract painter! So that's in my favor.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Good.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to no one in particular)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>See? That's exactly my point. Good.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I do mostly landscapes.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Like outside paintings?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. Plein Air. Which is outdoor painting. I try to capture the feel of the light and atmosphere.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>That sounds lovely. Jake used to paint, too, of course.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(into his plate)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Mom.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>He worked really hard at it.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I didn't know that! Jake!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake doesn't look up.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>He was very good.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I try to imbue my work with a kind of interiority.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Interiority. So you paint insides? I thought --</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Inside my head. So a landscape would attempt to express how I'm feeling at the time: lonely, joyous, worried, sad.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>That sounds very interesting. Like that painting of that girl sitting in a field looking at a house?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Christina's World. Wyeth. Yes. Exactly. But without people.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>How can a picture of a field be sad without a sad person looking sad in the field?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's an interesting problem. That's what I struggle with. I have some pictures of my work, if you'd like to see.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh, yes.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah, sure.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman pulls out her phone, sees that there have been several calls from Louisa. She ignores them, opens up her portfolio, crosses the table, places herself between the Mother and Father, and shows them her work. The painting are beautiful: expressionistic, vast, lonely wintry landscapes.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I mean, they're pretty, but I don't see how they're supposed to make me feel something if there's not a person in them feeling sad or joyous or whatever other emotion you said.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Maybe think of yourself as the person, looking out at the scene.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I'd have to see me in them.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>As if you're there. If you were there, you wouldn't see yourself, right?</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I would if I looked down. I'm not a ghost! Yet!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Father and the Mother laugh.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>I can attest to that! Especially in the bedroom!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Jesus.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Sure. But if you were just looking out at it, without looking down. You'd just see the scene and feel something. Anything an environment makes you feel is all about you and not the environment, right? None of the feeling is inherent to place.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Well, that's over my head, I guess.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>They are pretty though. You're very talented. I like the colors.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Thank you.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Jake, you didn't tell us your girlfriend is so talented.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(to his food)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I did, actually.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>So Jake tells us you're studying physics at the university.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>That's unusual for a girl, isn't it?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Dad.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I'm just asking.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It is, actually. But a little less so these days. Which is good, I think.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Well, after seventh grade, I could never understand what Jake was saying! So it's wonderful he has someone he can talk to about all his ideas!</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Jake tells us there have been a lot of famous husband and wife physicists.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Jesus, Dad.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I guess there have been some. Pierre and Marie Curie shared a Nobel Prize in Physics.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Even I've heard of them. Well, her, anyway. Radiation.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Radioactivity.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I never heard of him, though.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>It's all so exciting. And I'm so glad Jake has found someone. Won't you please tell us the story of how you met? Jake has refused.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>I love romantic meeting stories. Like in Forget Paris? Billy Crystal?</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I didn't like that movie.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman looks over at Jake. He stares down at his plate. She looks at the Mother, who waits, expectantly.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Um, so, I went with a friend to a bar near campus. It turned out to be trivia night.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>I love this so far. Jake is crazy about trivia. We used to play the genius edition of Trivial Pursuit and --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Genus.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>What?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's genus edition.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Really? I've always thought the word was genius. I've been saying it wrong all these years! It goes to show...</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(punchline)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>... I'm no genus!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She laughs. The Father laughs.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>That's a good one.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>No. Genus is not the same as genius. A genus is a category.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh. I always thought it was the genius edition. I told everybody you knew every answer in the genius edition. I was very proud of that.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(thought)</parenthetical>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Why didn't we get the genius edition?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(yelling into his plate)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>There is no genius edition!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman looks at him, frightened by his anger.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Ok. I didn't understand. Ok.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence. Everyone eats. The Young Woman tries to lighten the mood. \*\*YOUNG WOMAN APPEARANCE CHANGES\*\* \*</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>So Jake was with his trivia team and my friend and I found an empty table near them. I was watching him.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Because you thought he was cute!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ha. Yeah, I did. And very serious about the game, which I found -- I don't know -- charming. His team was called... what?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Brehznev's Eyebrows.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Right. Brehznev's Eyebrows. I asked him who Brehznev was. Basically because I wanted to say something to him. He told me Brehznev was a Soviet engineer, General...</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>... Secretary of the Communist Party.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>During the Age of Starvation.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Stagnation.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Stagnation. Anyway, those kind of team names drive me nuts, usually. They all have them, those teams.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Show-offy. But, I don't know, it didn't bother me with Jake.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to Mother)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Maybe I just didn't let it, because I thought he was cute.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Aw. He is cute, isn't he?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>He is. So I was trying to get up the nerve to talk to him, because even though he had looked over at me more than once, it was clear he was not going to say anything.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Didn't you just say you talked about Brehznev?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh. Yes. That's true But then we didn't talk anymore after that, I guess, is what I meant.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>So I said something stupid like, you guys seem to be doing well. I had to yell it, practically; it was so noisy. He held up his beer and said, We're helpfully fortified. And I laughed and the ice was broken. I think he was egged on by my laughing, so he told me he is a cruci...</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>...verbalist.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I didn't know what it meant. But I didn't want to admit that, so I just said, cool. He was showing off again and poorly, but I guess I thought, ok, this guy is awkward. He doesn't have any game at all. There was something sort of appealing about that. But then it kept going. He said he had wanted the team name to be Ipseity.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>And I was like, ugh, now it's getting to be too much.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>You didn't like him anymore?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake looks over at the Young Woman.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>No. I did. I just wanted that stuff to stop. So I said, I don't know that word and you know I don't know that word, so why don't you just cut the crap? He said something like, I'm an asshole. I'm not very good at talking to people, and ipseity is just another word for selfhood. Anyway, after that he just talked like a normal person and he was funny. And I could see he wanted to ask for my number but was shy. Then my friend wanted to go, and so I was getting up, and he just blurted out, could he have my number.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Way to go, Jake! About time!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>And I was very glad he did. The rest is history. That was like, what, six weeks ago? I don't know. Feels longer. Feels like forever, in a way. I can't really remember how long ago it is. Feels like forever.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>What a wonderful story! It could be in a movie!</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>"Feels like forever." That's very romantic.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>A53,B53,OMITTED A53,B53, C53 OMITTED C53</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>,V53 INT. ART CLASSROOM - NIGHT 53,V</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor watches a DVD on the TV in the classroom as he scrubs solvent onto paint stains on the art table. On the TV, a young waitress is finishing up at a booth. The scene is punctuated by a cute score.</scene_description>
    <character>WAITRESS</character>
    <dialogue>Great! I'll be right back with your beverages!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She makes her way to the kitchen window. A young man on a mission enters the restaurant, spots her and hurries over.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yvonne!</dialogue>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>What? What do you want?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <dialogue>I just wanted to say hi.</dialogue>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>Can't you see I'm working?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <dialogue>I can. I'm sorry. I just had to talk to you.</dialogue>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>I think it's abundantly clear that you and I have nothing -- \*</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She walks off; he follows. She enters kitchen &amp; exits. \*</scene_description>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>-- more to say to each other. Goodbye.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(arrives at new table)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Hello! Welcome to Harris Grill. I'm Yvonne, I'll be taking care of you today.</dialogue>
    <character>CUSTOMER</character>
    <dialogue>There's a guy behind you.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Yvonne turns to look.</scene_description>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <parenthetical>(to young man)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Really??</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to customer)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>That's Nimrod. He's the idiot waiter in training trailing me.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(to customer)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Hi, I'm Nimrod.</dialogue>
    <character>CUSTOMER</character>
    <dialogue>Hey.</dialogue>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>So are you folks ready to order? Or can I answer any questions about the menu?</dialogue>
    <character>CUSTOMER</character>
    <dialogue>How's the Santa Fe burger? \*</dialogue>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>Very popular.</dialogue>
    <character>CUSTOMER</character>
    <dialogue>Ok, so which do you prefer, the Santa Fe burger or the Natchez burger.</dialogue>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>Hmm. That's a tough one. They're both really, really good.</dialogue>
    <character>CUSTOMER</character>
    <dialogue>You don't have a favorite?</dialogue>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>Well, I guess I'd say --</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <dialogue>Look, man, she's a vegan.</dialogue>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>What the hell are you doing?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <dialogue>What you don't know about this amazing woman before you is that she is not a waitress --</dialogue>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>Get out of here!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Yvonne pushes him to the door, but he keeps addressing the customer, raising his volume as the distance between them increases.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <dialogue>-- Well, she is a waitress, but only to put herself through school \* so she can be an animal welfare lawyer. Not a crumb of meat or dairy has passed her amazing, beautiful lips since she was five years old and she learned that a hamburger is a ground-up cow. She has spent all her life since, trying to make the world a safer, kinder place for animals. And I love her! I love her! I love her because she is the sweetest, most caring, funniest, smartest --</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He is pushed out the door. Yvonne closes it behind him. He just stands there, watching her through the glass. She turns away from him to see that everyone in the restaurant is watching, as well. The customers applaud. Her boss approaches.</scene_description>
    <character>BOSS</character>
    <dialogue>That was beautiful, Yvonne. You're fired.</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>V53 EXT. DINER - DAY (TV SHOW) V53</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>On the street. Yvonne and the young man sit on the curb, both staring straight ahead. She's in street clothes now and holding her bag in her lap.</scene_description>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>You are such an idiot.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <dialogue>Agreed.</dialogue>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>I needed that job, idiot.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <dialogue>I know.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence. Still staring forward, she slugs him on the arm. Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>Did you say you love me?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <dialogue>I did.</dialogue>
    <character>YVONNE</character>
    <dialogue>Idiot.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG MAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Both still staring ahead, Yvonne reaches for his hand and takes it.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARM HOUSE - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>They're all still at the dinner table. The Mother wears a slightly different dress now. She seems a bit older. Her nailless toe is now wrapped in a bandage. The Father's Band Aid is on the other side of his forehead. The Young Woman is in an outfit slightly different than earlier, slightly reminiscent of Yvonne's STREET CLOTHES \*\*YOUNG WOMAN \* APPEARANCE CHANGE\*\* She seems somewhat aware of the changes, \* but uncertain.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Jake was always a good boy. He was even awarded a diligence pin at school.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to Jake)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>You remember?</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to young woman)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Diligence. At eight. Can you believe that? It was quite a thing. His father and I never got awarded any such pin at eight.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>At any age.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>True enough. At no age.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I did have a bunch of sports trophies, but no diligence trophy. I don't imagine I even knew the word "diligence" at eight.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>But Jake knew it.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to Jake)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>You knew.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Jake knew.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to Jake)</parenthetical>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Remember how excited you were about the diligence pin, kiddo?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>No.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>He wore it to school.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I didn't</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>He did. Every day.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to Jake)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>You did.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I didn't. I was disappointed. I wanted the "Acumen" pin. "Diligence" is an also ran. "You there, you work very hard. You're not that bright, but we're impressed that you try anyway."</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Don't be sour. It was a lovely pin.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to Young Woman)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Dessert? I made Jake's favorite chocolate cake</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Lovely. Of course. I never turn down anything chocolate.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Lovely.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <parenthetical>(singing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Wouldn't it be loverly?</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to Young Woman)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>My Fair Lady.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Mother shoots the father a look, gets up and makes her way to the kitchen, touching his shoulder on the way.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Help me, I'll serve dessert in the sitting room.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>There's something in the way she says "help me" that isn't a casual plea for kitchen help. He nods, gets up and follows her out of the room. The parents voices are raised in the other room, some sort of argument, interspersed with the father singing bits of "Wouldn't it be Loverly." Jake and the Young Woman sit in silence, Jake still looking down at his food.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>A55 INT. FARM HOUSE - SITTING ROOM - NIGHT A55</stage_direction>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You seem so quiet. You ok?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(looking up at her)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Do you like them?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>They're very nice. Very nice parents. You chose well, my friend.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes! Of course! They love you a lot. That's totally clear. That's of prime importance in parents.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. I suppose. We've had our issues.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Jesus. Everybody has issues with their parents!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She looks around, under the table.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Hey, what happened to Jimmy?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'm sure he's around. Maybe he went back out into the snow. He loved the snow.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman spots Jimmy; he's in the corner, still shaking himself off.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>There he is.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She crosses to him, kneels down and pets him.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(affectionately)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>You stinky, wet monster.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He wags his tail.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Sorry.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>About?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>His smell.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's fine, Jake. He's a dog.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She notices some photos on the wall and crosses to them. Jake is anxious. The photos are of the family: Jake as a teen, his parents. There are a couple of photos of his parents older than they are now, one in which they look elderly and feeble.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Just some old family photos.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She looks over at him and nods. When she looks back, those photos of his parents older are gone. She searches for them. Her eyes come to rest on a photo of a young girl. The Young Woman is startled.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Wait. Who is this?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You can't tell?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>No.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's me.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>And it is. It's Jake now in the same jeans and t-shirt the girl was wearing in the photo.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I'm certain that was a photograph of me as a kid a moment ago. How could that possibly be in Jake's --</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The parents enter with dessert.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Sorry! Sorry for the delay! Kitchen emergency, don't ya know.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Mother carries some sort of large, rolled chocolate log cake. There is a garishness to it.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Jake's favorite. Chocolate Yule Log. Mmmm.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <parenthetical>(laughing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Even though it's well past Yule!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Mother places the cake on the table, sits. The Father sits. The Young Woman sits back down.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>That reminds me, when Jake sucked his thumb --</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Way past the age when he should've stopped.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>He'd say "yull, yull, yull, yull" as he sucked it.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Yull log. Kind of looks like a thumb.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Mmmm. That looks great.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Thank you. Enjoy!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Mother cuts a too-thick slice, plates it, and hands it to the young woman.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Thank you. It really looks amazing.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Enjoy!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She continues to slice the cake and pass it out.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>I've been having problems with my ears. Just in case anyone was wondering why I keep rubbing at my ears all night long.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She has not been, but she is now.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>You have more than a problem.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Tinnitus. It is what it is, as they say.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What is tinnitus?</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Not very much fun, is what.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Not very much fun. But shit happens, as they say. I hear a buzzing in my ears, is what. Well, not a buzzing. More of a hiss. Well, more of a whisper.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh no. Always?</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Yes. As if I'm constantly being whispered to. Psss psss psss psss.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(laughing a bit manically)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I wish I could tell what it's saying! Maybe it's sharing the secrets of the Universe with me!</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>But I can't tell.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat, then laughing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Maybe it's giving me stock market tips!</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh ho! We'd be rich!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Well, I'm --</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman's phone rings. It's loud and startles her. She grabs for it reflexively, looks at the screen. "Yvonne" is calling.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Sorry. Sorry. I thought it was dead. Just my friend.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Her friend calls a lot. \*</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>You can take it. You should take it. We won't think it rude.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>No, it's ok. It's not important.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Well, you don't know. It might be. It's a blizzard out there. Maybe she's stranded.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>No, it's ok. Is it a blizzard now?</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(looking at Jake)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>We don't want to get stuck.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's fine. I've got the chains.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh, you put the chains on?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(to parents)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I have to work early tomorrow.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(to Father)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Not yet. But I have them in the bed.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <parenthetical>(to Young Woman)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>The chains should make it fine.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>What's that? I'm sorry.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She points to her ear.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>The chains.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat, to young woman)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>The Whispers, I call them.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Night is the worst.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>What is?</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Night.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh. Night is the worst. I don't sleep much anymore.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>That sounds very difficult. I'm sorry.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <parenthetical>(not hearing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I'm sorry?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I just said, I'm sorry.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(laughs)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>We're both sorry!</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(thought)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>You should take your call, though.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Could be an emergency.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>No. I know what she's calling about. It's fine.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(oddly pointed)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>You should at least listen to the message.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman and Jake stare at each other for a long moment.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ok. Sure.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She puts the phone to her ear. Jake watches her closely.</scene_description>
    <character>MAN'S VOICE</character>
    <dialogue>There's only one question to resolve. I'm scared. I feel a little crazy. I'm not lucid. The assumptions are right. I can feel my fear growing. Now is the time for the answer. Just one question. One question to answer.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The message is over. She puts the phone back in her purse.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>She's fine.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>What'd she want?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Just calling to say hi.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Well, that's nice. Friends are important. Jake never really had a lot of them growing up. Or even after. Remember your fiftieth birthday --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Twentieth.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>What'd I say?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Fiftieth.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh goodness. Where is my brain? Anyway. Friends are helpful, I've always found. Life can be difficult. On a farm.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>It doesn't get easier as it trudges along, I'll say that.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>What's that?</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>It doesn't get easier.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>What doesn't?</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Life.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh. No. It doesn't. It's basically a fast train to Hell.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>For God's sake, Mom.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>That's overstating it; I agree.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(laughing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>It's a fast train to Heck!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Father laughs.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Your mom was always funny. That's what I loved about her. I think it's what I first fell in love with. It kind of faded a bit as she got older.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>That's true. You get worn down, I guess. It's not so funny anymore.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I miss her terribly.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>So, Lucia is studying gerontology.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh, really? How fascinating.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I've always been interested in problems associated with aging. I think our society has an almost repulsed relationship to the aged, which is eminently foolish, because it's a natural and inevitable part of the life cycle of all living things. Not to mention, it's terribly unkind.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Well, how interesting. And compassionate! You've got a keeper here, Jake. How kind she is.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman is looking out the window now. The snow is coming down hard and the wind is fierce.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh boy. It looks pretty bad. Jake, I think we should probably --</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(turns to room)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>-- go.</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>B55 INT. FARM HOUSE - SITTING ROOM - NIGHT B55</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The room is empty. The table has been cleared and is set with a vase overflowing with lush tropical flowers. \*\*YOUNG WOMAN \* APPEARANCE CHANGE\*\* \*</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Jake?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>No answer.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(calling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Jake?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>No answer.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(calling, panicked)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Jake??</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE (O.S.)</character>
    <parenthetical>(very far away)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>What?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(calling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I think we should go! It's looking pretty bad!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE (O.S.)</character>
    <dialogue>I have chains!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jimmy is in the corner shaking snow off himself.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(calling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Where are you?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Upstairs.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(calling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Ok.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She starts up the stairs, which are steep and narrow. She looks anxiously around as she climbs, feeling as if she is being watched.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm coming up! Just letting you know!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>No response.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARM HOUSE - UPSTAIRS HALLWAY - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>At the top of the stairs she finds that the hallway, going off at an odd angle, is much longer than one would expect. Many doorways.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Jake? Where are you?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>There is no response. She steps into the hall. The first room on the left features a sign that reads "Jake's Childhood Bedroom." She peeks inside. It's a young boy's room, empty, but the lights are on. She looks back down the hall.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Jake?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>No response. She enters the bedroom.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. JAKE'S CHILDHOOD BEDROOM - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>It is crammed with stuff: piles and piles of DVDs and VHS tapes of movies, but also tapes labeled things like "Humiliations," and "The Ways People Have Looked at Me," and "Recurring Dreams of Failure." There are childhood games, used bandages, porn magazines, a cremation urn labeled "Jimmy." There are books on the shelves: Wordsworth, Anna Karenina, Virology, a collection of Pauline Kael film reviews, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace, Theory of Colors by Goethe. There's a collection of poems by Eva H.D. open on the night table. She picks it up and sees the it is open to the poem Bonedog. A \* hand touches her shoulder, she turns with a start. The Father is behind her. He is conspicuously older now, feeble.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Hi.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You scared me. Sorry.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Sorry. This is Jake's childhood bedroom.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes. I saw the sign on the door --</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh, that.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I can explain that. My memory is going. Early signs of...</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He struggles for the word.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Dementia? Alzheimer's? Lewy Bodies - -</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I think that's it. So we have taken to labeling things around the home. You'll see labels all over the house.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I haven't noticed.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>You will notice.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Well, I'm certainly very sorry to hear --</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>It's ok. The truth is I'm looking forward to when it gets very bad so I don't have to remember that I can't remember.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He laughs and the Mother (O.S.) laughs somewhere far away.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>It seems like that will be a better way to...</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(struggling for word)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>... thing.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>They say, every cloud has a...</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Silver --</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <parenthetical>(jumping in)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Silver. Exactly. That's what they say. Every cloud has a silver. I believe it to be true.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>This was Jake's room. You two can stay in here tonight. His mother and I aren't old fashioned about those things. Fucking and what not.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The word is jarring coming from this man's mouth.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Well, I do need to get home. I have work in the morning, so --</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I know this bed is a little small for two...</dialogue>
    <scene_description>(searches for word) \* ... grown-ups. It's a child's bed, after all. And not even for twin children, just for one child. But I think for a single night you could make do.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>That's very generous of you --</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I mean you won't be doing any fucking on this bed, I imagine. It's not made for fucking. It's a child's bed. And just for one child. Not two.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Right.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Father nods, turns, and limps from the room.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I think I can find one of my wife's old... things for you to wear for tonight. I have to dig through some trunks, but I'm pretty sure I can find one of my wife's old things for you to wear for tonight.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He is gone. The Young Woman, shaking, waits for several beats.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. HALL - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman makes her way quietly down the hall.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(whisper)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Jake?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She sees a room marked "Mom's Room (After Dad Died)." She peeks in. Jake is feeding his mother, ancient and frail, now in a nightgown and wheelchair bound.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh, it's the girlfriend.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake turns.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(to Young Woman)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I'll be down in a minute.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman enters, startled by the age of the mother.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Jake. The snow. I need to leave.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>I've told him over and over, it's time for him to leave.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Mom, you need to eat.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to Young Woman)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I'll be down in a minute.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Mother turns her head away as Jake is about to stick the spoon in her mouth. The baby food, smears her cheek, spills on her nightgown. Jake is annoyed.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Mom!</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Jake was always a good boy.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Mom.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Diligent. He won a pin. Maybe not as naturally talented as some of the other students. But he worked so hard. And that's even more impressive. Being a genus is like being beautiful.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Genius</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Genius. The luck of the draw, really, the genetic lottery, as they say. But to do as well as Jake did with no special talent or abilities, that's much more impressive.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to Jake)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Maybe you should put the chains on?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(curt)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Soon!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman reacts to Jake's tone, backing away slightly.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ok.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(conciliatory)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>We'll leave soon. Let me just finish up here.</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>EXT. HIGH SCHOOL - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The storm is brutal. The Janitor, mumbling, empties trash into a dumpster. He turns and watches the storm.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman kisses Jake on the forehead. Her attitude has shifted. She looks at him with affection. \*\*YOUNG WOMAN \* APPEARANCE CHANGE - WARMER\*\* \*</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>-- I'm impressed with your attentiveness to your mom. It's rare. We tend to warehouse our elderly. It's really special how devoted a son you are.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Thanks. I'm glad to hear you say that. It makes me feel a bit better. Sometimes it feels like no one sees the good things you do. Like you're just alone.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I see. I'll wait downstairs. Give you some privacy.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman turns. 60pt.1 INT. HALL - NIGHT 60pt.1 She heads back to the stairs. Her expression shifts slowly to something harder, resolved, as she walks.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I should end this. Just end it. I Just make a clean break. No lingering. No waiting for things to get better. You can only wait so long.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She's descending the stairs now, which seem longer than on the way up. \*\*YOUNG WOMAN MULTI APPEARANCE CHANGES\*\* \*</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I don't know who I am in this whole thing anymore, where I stop and Jake starts. I'm a pinball. My emotional state is bouncing all over the place. Jake sees me ... needs to see me as someone who sees him. He needs to be seen and he needs to be seen with approval. Like that's my purpose in all this, in life. To approve of Jake. To keep him going. And he needs to see me as someone whose approval of him is validated because I'm approved of by others. Look at my girlfriend. Look at what I won. She's smart. She's talented. She's \* sensitive. She can do this. She knows about that. She made this. She cares about that.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I need to end it.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>60pt.2 INT. FARM HOUSE - BASE OF STAIRS - NIGHT 60pt.2 \* She arrives at the base of the stairs. Jake is slowly walking by, his arm looped with his now feeble father.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Let me just take him to the bathroom, then we'll go.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ok.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Is that the girl?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes, Dad. Louisa.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Good. I got your mom's...</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He holds up a nightgown. It has a post-it with the word "nightgown" on it.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <parenthetical>(reading)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>... nightgown for her.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Father, with a Parkinsonian tremor, holds out the nightgown the Mother had just been wearing. The Young Woman takes it, her hand touching some still-wet spilled baby food. She tries to hide her revulsion, but Jake sees it, reacts.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>That's very kind. But I'm going to have to head home tonight. Soon.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I don't understand.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(to Jake)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>What does she mean?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I don't know, Dad. I can't tell exactly. It's not exactly clear.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I have my shift tomorrow.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>She's a waitress. We met when she was serving me. It's a sweet story. I asked her what she thought of the Santa Fe burger --</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>I'm feeling confused.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(to Father)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Let's just get you to the bathroom. We don't want another accident. Remember last night?</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>No.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake leads his father off. The Young Woman drapes the nightgown over the stairway banister and looks out the window at the storm.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER (O.C.)</character>
    <dialogue>What's this old thing doing here?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman turns to see the Mother holding the \* nightgown. This is a very young version of the Mother (1950s \* look). \*</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm not sure.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Oh my goodness. It's filthy! It's got Jake's baby food on it! What's it doing here? I tell you, I would misplace my own head if it wasn't screwed onto my shoulders.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(laughs)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Would you be a sweetheart and toss this in the washer. I just started a load. My hands are full picking up all these darn toys.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She laughs. Children's toys are scattered around the room.</scene_description>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Jake would leave his head on the floor if it wasn't screwed onto his shoulders.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Sure. Where is it?</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>In the basement.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She nods toward the scratched-up door.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I don't think Jake wants me down there.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>Jake Jake Jake. Jake can be controlling. You can't allow him to control you. I think that's the other side of his type of personality, of this diligence thing. He needs to control everything. There are so many, many things that make him nervous that he just keeps closing more and more of the world off.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>And the few people left in his life have to follow all sorts of rules. It's a problem.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <dialogue>I'm sure I'm to blame, but then all that guilt just causes me to feel obligated to bend over backwards to accommodate his every little whim. It's a vicious cycle.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman and the Mother watch each other for a long moment.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>So, what exactly are you saying to me.</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER</character>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I'm saying, take the damn nightgown to the basement. Live dangerously.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Mother laughs again. The Young Woman nods, opens the basement door. The stairs are rickety and it's dark. There is a bare bulb at the bottom of the stairs. She heads down.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. BASEMENT - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman makes her ways slowly down the dark, makeshift staircase, the noise of a washer thumping angrily through an unbalanced load fills the space.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE (O.S.)</character>
    <dialogue>You sent her down?</dialogue>
    <character>MOTHER (O.S.)</character>
    <dialogue>To the washer.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE (O.C.)</character>
    <dialogue>Mom, it's really --</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(calling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Lucy?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She looks up the stairs and sees Jake silhouetted in the doorway.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You don't have to do laundry for my mother! You're a guest! We'll get you a clean nightgown for tonight.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'll just toss it in! I don't mind!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Well, we should get on the road!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes! I'll be up in the minute!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I could use some help with the chains!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Right! I'll be up!</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. FARMHOUSE - BASEMENT - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>At the bottom, she looks back up; Jake is no longer in the doorway, which now seems to lead directly outside to the storm. Snow blows down the stairs. She turns to the room. Dirt floors. Scarred concrete walls. An old washing machine is bouncing and chugging. She opens the lid, watches the dark, sloshing water come to a stop, the room turning silent, aside from the howling wind. She stares down into the black water. After a moment, she plunges her arm (sleeve and all) into it, fishes around, and pulls out several dark green work shirts featuring the name of a high school stitched above the breast pocket, one after another. She puts them back, throws in the nightgown, closes the lid. The agitator resumes. She looks around the room. A small easel is set up in the corner with a crude landscape painting on it. Taped to the wall behind it are prints of the landscape paintings the Young Woman had on her phone. Printing on the bottom of the white borders indicate these are 19th century paintings by Isaac Levitan. The painting on the easel is a terrible attempt to copy one of the prints, unskilled, lifeless. She sees a pile of paintings and flips through them; they are all miserable attempts at copies. They are all signed "Jake." She tries to bring up her own paintings on her phone. They are gone. Her phone rings again. It is from Louisa. She answers it.</scene_description>
    <character>MAN'S VOICE</character>
    <dialogue>There's only one question to resolve. I'm scared. I feel a little crazy. I'm not lucid. The assumptions are right. I can feel my fear growing. Now is the time for the answer. Just one question. One question to answer</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She hurries up the stairs.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. SITTING ROOM - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman, out of breath, emerges from the basement to see Jake standing mournfully over his ancient mother, clearly dead, lying on a hospital bed in the middle of the room.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh my God, Jake. Is your --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Shh. She's asleep.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>She's -- ?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>We should go. It's getting treacherous.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Are you certain she's all right?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Out like a light. A good time to go.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What about your Dad?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>He's... puttering somewhere.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Should we say goodbye?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Father emerges from the kitchen, younger, holding a spanner and an elbow joint.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Disposal's out again. It was sure great to meet you though.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh! Thank you. It was great to meet you. Thank you so much for your hospitality.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>You're always welcome here.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>That's --</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Jake's a good boy. Yes?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>A good man, I should say. You agree?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He hugs her.</scene_description>
    <character>FATHER</character>
    <dialogue>Ok, then. Be safe.</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>EXT. FARM HOUSE - CAR - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>Jake is laying out the chains while the Young Woman watches. It's windy and snowing hard.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm impressed you know how to do such things.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's no big deal.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I guess I'm just not very mechanically inclined.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Everyone has their talent. You're more of an art --</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He stops himself, looks up at her.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes. That's true.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>65pt.1 INT. CAR - NIGHT 65pt.1 Jake drives through the storm. She looks out at the night.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>So?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Did you like them?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>They're very nice.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Really?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>They can be a little pushy. But they're basically decent people.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>That was eminently clear.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Good.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>They loved you, by the way.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Good. I'm glad.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>So smart, my mother said.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Did she?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Well, not to you. That would have made you uncomfortable. When I was helping her with the dishes.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She stares out at the storm.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I don't remember Jake helping his mother with the dishes. I feel uncertain about a lot of what happened tonight. It seems as if everything was slightly --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>When you and Dad were discussing -- What was it?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(suddenly recalling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Tariffs.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Right, tariffs.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I remember now. I'm a little fuzzy.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You had a lot of wine. He was thrilled to have someone who knew --</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Did I?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You did. I don't think you noticed, because Dad kept topping you off.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Did he?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Oh, yes.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Right. I did notice that. Tricky.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Makes it hard to keep count.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It does.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>But all in all, I think it was a successful visit.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Everyone got to know each other.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's true. They're very nice.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You liked them?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I did. Yes.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Good. They both liked you. I think that's a good sign.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Sign?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Sign is perhaps not the right word. Thing. A good thing.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's good when people you like like each other.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake looks over at her for confirmation. She nods without back at him, watches the snow in the headlights.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>People think of themselves as points moving through time, but I think it's probably the opposite, we're stationary and time passes through us, blowing like cold wind, stealing our heat, leaving us chapped and frozen and -- I don't know -- dead. I feel like I was that wind tonight, blowing through Jake's parents, seeing them as they were, seeing them as they will be. Seeing them after they're gone, when only I'm left. Only the wind.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>What are you thinking?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Not much.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Really?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. I'm tired, Jake. The wine, I guess.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You did have a lot.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Alcohol is a depressant, as you know. So --</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Of course I know.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I think a person needs to keep that in mind before making decisions under its influence.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(chuckling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>A woman under the influence.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Amazing film.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm not sure I agree. I've been watching it over and over for my essay due Wednesday.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I mean, I felt a kinship with Mabel, I guess. She's such a powerful and horribly wronged character.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Is she? Hmm. I think --</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Mabel Longhetti is bombed out because she has always wanted to please everyone, so she can be considered one more victim-heroine for "women's liberation" -- but only by women's liberationists who are willing to accept textbook spinoffs as art. The Junoesque Gena Rowlands (Mrs. Cassavetes) is a prodigious actress, and she never lets go of the character.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I agree. I thought she was great in the role. It seemed to me she encompassed this character as a kind of spectrum of --</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Now, at an indeterminate age when her beauty has deepened beyond ingénue roles, Rowlands can look old or young, and shades of expression transform Mabel Longhetti from a radiantly flirtatious beauty into a sad, sagging neighborhood drunk.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Rowlands externalizes schizophrenic dissolution. Mabel fragments before our eyes: a three-ring circus might be taking place in her face. Rowlands' performance is enough for half a dozen tours de force, a whole row of Oscars - it's exhausting. Conceivably, she's a great actress, but nothing she does is memorable, because she does so much.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>It's the most transient big performance I've ever seen.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I guess, I'm unclear what you mean by 'transient."</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The young woman considers this, then:</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Mabel tries to slash her wrist, and Nick puts a Band-Aid on the cut: the idiot symbolism may make you want to hoot, but this two-hour-and- thirty-five-minute film leaves you too groggy to do more than moan. Details that are meant to establish the pathological nature of the people around Mabel, and so show her isolation, become instead limp, false moments. We often can't tell whether the characters are meant to be unconscious of what they're doing or whether it's Cassavetes who's unconscious. Mabel's children keep murmuring that they love her, and there are no clues to how to decipher this refrain. Are the children coddling her-reversing roles and treating her like a child in need of reassurance? Or are they meant to be as unashamedly loving as she is? And what are we to make of Nick the pulper's constant assertations --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Is assertations even a word? I thought it was assertions.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It is. They're both words. Look it up.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(continuing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>And what are we to make of Nick the pulper's assertations of love? The movie is entirely tendentious; it's all planned, yet it isn't thought out.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake seems embarrassed. How could he have liked this film?</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I do see what you're saying. And you're certainly the expert on things cinematic.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman seems blurry, confused, somewhat startled by her long-winded assessment of the movie.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. That I am.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I guess I was just taken in by the sympathy Cassavetes showed for her. I feel like maybe our society lacks a certain kindness, a willingness to take in the vulnerabilities and struggles of others... struggling with issues caused by...</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>An alienating society?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I don't know. I guess, yeah. It seems hopeless.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What does?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Everything? It's like, feeling old, like, your body is going, your hearing, your sight. You can't see and you're invisible, and you made so many wrong turns. The lie of it all.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What's the lie of it all?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I don't know. That things are going to get better. That it's never too late. That good things come to those who wait. That God has a plan for you. That age is just a number. That it's always darkest before the dawn. That every cloud has a silver lining.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>That there's someone for everyone.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Platitudes, all.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>That God never gives us more than we can bear.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>God's a good egg that way.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Hey, do you feel like something sweet?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What do you mean?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Something sweet. Dessert.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Didn't we have dessert at your mom's? I feel like there was some huge cake-thing she brought out and --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>True. I guess I'm a sugar junkie. I don't know. It might help me stay awake.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Then definitely. We need Jake awake for a bit. This is all so treacherous.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Good. There's a Tulsey Town just at the turn-off up ahead.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(laughing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>A Tulsey Town! Open now? In this? It's freezing.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(chuckling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>It is. Perfect weather for a BURR, don't you think?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ha. I guess it is.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(singing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>In the land of Tulsey Town we are \* here to soft serve.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>The land of Tulsey Town. Jesus. I never thought about that before. What is the land of Tulsey Town, do you suppose?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Based on the clown, it's a circus town. Maybe like that place where the sideshow folks go during the off-season.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ooh. Ruled by the clown lady?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Well, yes she wears a crown.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>A clown crown. \*</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>A benevolent and tolerant ice cream clown queen made entirely of lactose.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>She's lactose tolerant!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Ha. Yes. She's sweet but cold.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Like your mom.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>What do you mean?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Nothing. I don't know why I said that. Just kind of came out.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Did you think of my mother as cold?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>No! She was lovely. She really was.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. I don't subscribe to that "the mother is cause of all psychological problems" crap.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's misogynistic claptrap. Freudian bullshit.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. It's tempting to have someone to pin it on, though.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Pin what on?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>All of it. I don't know. Why you feel a certain way, why you are a certain way.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>But it's misogynistic claptrap. Freudian bullshit. A person, an adult, has to, at some point, take responsibility for who they are, what they've become. Don't you think?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I do.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Mothers are just people with their own pain, their own histories of neglect and abuse.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yet at one time or another in the 20th century every fucking childhood trait was blamed on them: schizophrenia, autism, narcissism, homosexuality.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Not that homosexuality is akin to any of those other things.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Of course not.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Saying that a mother is "to blame" for her child's homosexuality is to imply that homosexuality is somehow negative.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Of course. And I didn't mean that. But when homosexuality was considered a pathology, in the DSM, before 1973, a coddling mother was often seen as the culprit.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Right. It's despicable how we label people, categorize them, dismiss them. I look at the kids I see at school every day. I see the ones who are ostracized. They're different, out of step. I see the lives they'll have because of it. Sometimes I see them years later, in town or at the supermarket. I can tell they still carry that stuff around with them. Like a black aura. A mill stone. An oozing wound.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman, watches him, taking it in. Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>Jake, I'm thinking of --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Here. Ta-dah!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>65pt.2 EXT. TULSEY TOWN - NIGHT 65pt.2 \* She looks over to see that they have arrived at an old and somewhat decrepit Tulsey Town. It sits isolated, open and glowing, in the middle of the snow storm, surrounded by blackness.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh, Wow. The land of Tulsey Town...</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>EXT. TULSEY TOWN - JAKE'S CAR - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The wind howls and the snow swirls as Jake and the Young Woman emerge from the car.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Man. It's brutal.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Brutal place, the land of Tulsey Town. Climate change here, too. You ever read the novel Ice?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I don't think so.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>By Anna Kavan?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I don't think so.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>1967. It's a fable of sorts about --</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I don't think so. Let's get the ice cream and go. I'm freezing.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake peers into the Tulsey Town window. The store seems empty.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>In a minute. I want to see who's on tonight first?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>On?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Working.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You know the people who work here?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Some of them. I stop sometimes after visiting my parents. I don't like some of the girls who work here so I want to make sure...</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What's wrong with them?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Nothing. I don't know. People can be cold to me.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Well, let's do this or I'm waiting in the car.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She heads back to the car.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>No!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She looks at him.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(more softly)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Let's stay.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake knocks on the window -- There are no employees visible.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Say hello. They won't come if they know it's me.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She eyes him, then:</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(calling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Hello? Anybody here?</dialogue>
    <character>GIRL (O.S.)</character>
    <dialogue>In a minute.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>So Ice takes place during an environmental cataclysm that's caused the world to become a frozen wasteland and --</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Two girls, who were seen among the high school students in the play earlier, emerge from the back. They wear T.T. hats and shirts, still in their stage make-up. They see the Young Woman first, then Jake, who stands off to the side, looking sheepish.</scene_description>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 1</character>
    <dialogue>Oh.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The two employees side-eye each other.</scene_description>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 2</character>
    <parenthetical>(mockingly polite)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Can we help you, sir?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake doesn't say anything. The Young Woman looks over at him, sees he is unable to speak. The girls snicker.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Um...</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(looks at menu)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I'll have a... medium Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough B-r-r-r and he'll have...</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She looks at Jake. The Tulsey Town girls watch him.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(quietly)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Same.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Two of those, please.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Tulsey Town girls eye each other and giggle.</scene_description>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 2</character>
    <dialogue>Two "sames."</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Tulsey Town girls just stand there, whispering to each other and giggling as they side-eye Jake. The Young Woman watches them, waiting, confused.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>So..., um, sorry, we need to get back on the road, so can we get those --</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Another uniformed girl emerges from the back and goes about making the B-r-r-r's. She is small and haunted. Jake looks down at his shoes.</scene_description>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>Sorry for the smell; they're doing some varnishing in the back.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Varnishing?</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>Shelves.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh. Ok. No problem.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman glances over at Jake. He's looking at the haunted girl's exposed arms, which are covered with an eczema- type rash. The Young Woman follows his look and sees the rash, too. The girl scratches mercilessly at her rash as she makes the B-r-r-r's.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I know this girl. I've seen her somewhere. I've seen her before. Her face. Her rash. I know her. It's on the tip of my tongue. The tip of my brain, as Jake says. She's someone. She's from somewhere. I'm certain of it.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The girl turns from her task to the young woman.</scene_description>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <parenthetical>(meekly)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>It's a fucking blizzard out there. \*</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman is surprised by the girl's choice of words. She takes a moment to formulate a response.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It is. I was surprised you were even open on a night like --</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>Fucking blizzard out there, fucking \* B-r-r-r's in here.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>T.T. Girl 3 smiles apologetically for her attempt at a joke.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(supportively)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I was thinking the very same thing.</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>You're kind. Not like them.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(indicating other girls)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>You're not like them. Vapid and mean and pretty.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ha. Thanks a lot.</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <parenthetical>(on the verge of tears)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I didn't mean it like that.</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>I love the way you look. You have a kindness. And of course you're very attractive. I didn't mean it like that.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's ok. I understand.</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>I didn't mean it like that. It's just that there seems to be a certain... hardness that comes with a certain kind of pretty. You don't have that. Maybe they suffer, too, the pretty ones. I don't know. Maybe their prettiness causes them suffering. I'm not a psychiatrist.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>What an odd thing to say. Of course she's not a psychiatrist. She can't be more than fifteen.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>T.T. GIRL 3 holds the piled-high B-r-r-r's upside down, then places them right side up on the counter.</scene_description>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>I made them extra high. Because you're so nice.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>That'll be eight dollars, please.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake hands her a ten. The Young Woman notices that Jake has a similar rash on his hand. Tulsey Town Girl 3, puts the money in the register and gives the change to the Young Woman.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You keep the change.</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <parenthetical>(to Young Woman)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Thank you.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You're welcome. Thank you.</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>I'm worried.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman looks around, confused. No one else is paying attention. The other girls are giggling. Jake is at the door, looking at the storm.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Excuse me?</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>I shouldn't be saying this. I know what happens. It's not good.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(looking at other girls)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Are you ok? Do you need me to call for help?</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>It's not varnish. That's not why it smells. You should know that.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What do you mean?</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>You don't have to go.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The other two employees are whispering and giggling.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I don't have to go where?</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>Forward. In time. You don't have to. You can stay here.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I'm very scared.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Of what? What are you scared of?</dialogue>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>I'm scared for you.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake looks over. T.T. Girl 3 changes her tone.</scene_description>
    <character>T.T. GIRL 3</character>
    <dialogue>Have a good night. Be careful out there. The roads are treacherous.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>67pt.1 INT. CAR - NIGHT 67pt.1 Jake drives. They pick at their B-r-r-r's..</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Any good?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. It's fine. It's good.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>They eat in silence.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Did you notice that girl's arms?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Which girl?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>At the Tulsey Town.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(containing impatience)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Which girl. There were several.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Several? There were three.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Several is anything more than two.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Really?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Look it up.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Look it up? Now? Will you stop saying that? Anyway, the skinny one.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Weren't they all skinny?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You are being willfully obtuse.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Not my intention.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(mockingly)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Not my intention.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(angry)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>The one with the rash all over her arms!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I didn't notice.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ok. Anyway...</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>How's the Burr? Too sweet?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's sweet, yes. But it's good.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake has placed his B-r-r-r in the cup holder. It's melting.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I always forget how sweet these are. A little goes a long way. I don't think I can eat any more of mine.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You barely touched it.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's very sweet.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It is a lot.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She turns up the heat.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Cold?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Probably the ice cream.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>And we're in a snowstorm. Whose idea was it to go to Tulsey Town in the middle of this, anyway?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She looks over at him.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm not saying a word.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>They both laugh. She looks out at the storm, which has an otherworldly quality to it.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>How odd. This is probably the last time I'll ever be in a car with Jake. Soon this will all be a distant memory. We'll both be in different places, remembering this moment, this shared laugh. And maybe there'll be regret. Maybe time will soften the harder edges and we'll both think, that was sort of nice. Why did it have to end? And there's no way back at that point. There's never a way back. Maybe it doesn't need to end. Why am I putting so much pressure on this to be some bullshit out of a movie? Maybe I will eventually fall in love with Jake. Maybe it will get better. Relationships take effort. Anyone in a successful relationship will always tell you --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>You got quiet all of a sudden. Penny?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Just watching the storm.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Huh.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>But if you can't even tell the other person what you're thinking, that doesn't bode well.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake looks back and forth several times from the road to the Young Woman, trying to read her mood. She stares straight ahead, watching the storm in the headlights.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Looks like you're done with it.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(looking at him)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>What do you mean?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He gestures to the two B-r-r-r's sitting in the cup holders and melting down their sides.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Me, too.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm a little cold, I guess.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>A bit of a wasted stop.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>At least I can say I've been to a Tulsey Town in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night in the middle of a snowstorm.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(singing)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I'm your favorite clown/from Tulsey Town/where ice cream grows on trees/So have no fear/come and join me here/and eat as much as you please/I will turn your frown/fully upside down/when you take your very first bite/of vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry/We're open day and night!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(chuckles)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>And it's something I'll never do again.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>A Supposedly Fun Thing You'll Never Do Again.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes. Exactly.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Have you read that?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Read what?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's a book of essays by David Foster Wallace.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I have not.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>A book of essays.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Uh-huh. No. I haven't read it.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>We should find a place to dump these. They're going to melt and get the cup holders all sticky.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Um. Ok.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>He's got an essay in it about television. "One of the things that makes the people on TV fit to stand the mega-gaze is that they are, by human standards, really pretty. I suspect that this, like most television conventions, is set up with motive no more sinister than to appeal to the largest possible Audience. Pretty people tend to be more pleasing to look at then non- pretty people. But when we're talking about television, the combination of sheer Audience size and quiet psychic intercourse between images and oglers starts a cycle that both enhances pretty images' appeal and erodes us viewers' own security in the face of gazes. Because of the way humans relate to narrative, we tend to identify with those characters we find appealing. We try to see ourselves in them. The same I.D.- relation, however, also means that we try to see them in ourselves. When everybody we seek to identify with for six hours a day is pretty, it naturally becomes more important for us to be pretty, to be viewed as pretty."</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>That's from the essay.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Huh.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>There's a lot more, but I won't bore you.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's interesting. Kinda long- winded.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>He killed himself.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes. I think I knew that.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Everybody knows it. Even people who know nothing else about David Foster Wallace, have never read a word of his writing. Suicide becomes the story. The mythology. The cautionary tale. It's obnoxious. Other people's suffering turned into stories. They made a movie about him. Based on a bestselling book, published two years after he killed himself.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Huh.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Neither of which would have existed had he not killed himself.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I don't think we know how to be human anymore.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Who doesn't?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Our society. Our culture. People. Whatever all this is. Any of us.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Have you ever read any Guy DeBord? The Society of the Spectacle?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Exactly! Yes! Of course!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>DeBord says, "The society cannot be understood as a mere visual deception produced by mass-media technologies. It is a worldview that has actually been materialized."</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Exactly. We watch the world through this glass, pre-interpreted for us. It infects our brains. We become it.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>A virus.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Listen, these melting things are driving me crazy. It's going to get everything all sticky.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Do you have a plastic bag I can put them in? Some napkins, maybe?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>No. Nothing like that. I want to find some place to dump them.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>There doesn't seem to be anything around here.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>There's a small road up ahead I know of. There'll be a garbage can.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I don't know. Maybe we should just head home.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(confused)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>To the farm?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What? No. To the city. I'm worried about getting stuck out here. If we turn off the main road and get stuck, no one will find us.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. True.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'm just not going to feel right if I don't get rid of these. It'll prey on my mind. Shit. I should've brought napkins. And a plastic bag. Like you said. That was really stupid. A plastic bag would've solved everything.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Not everything.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake pounds at the steering wheel. The Young Woman watches.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's not a big deal. Really.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yes. I know that, Ames.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>Ames? Is that short for Amy? That doesn't sound right. That doesn't seem like my name. Or my nickname.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Just let's go here real quick.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake turns off onto a narrow dirt road -- almost a path -- bordered by tall dark trees.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>And I'll get to show you my high school.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>This goes to a high school?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yes. My high school. Where I went every tortured day for so long. So goddamn long.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I did not like high school.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(worried)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>No one did, really.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>That's what they tell me. I am told that.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's true.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I see people who seem to thrive there.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>This road goes to a high school?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. Why?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I don't know. It seems so -- It doesn't seem like a road at all.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>What does it seem like?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Hmm. A path? A trail? The road less travelled?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Well, it is a bit Frosty out.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(chuckling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Fired.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Just trying to lighten the mood.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>And that has made all the difference.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(chuckling)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Now who's fired?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I do feel uneasy, Jake. I think we should turn back. It doesn't feel right.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's just a high school.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It feels wrong.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Anyway, I can't turn around. The road's too narrow. I'll just get to the school, dump the cups, and we'll leave.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ok.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Good.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I just don't really get this. This road makes no sense to me. How do school buses get down here?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's a rural high school.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG</character>
    <dialogue>Jake, I grew up to a rural high normal entrance</dialogue>
    <character>WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>on a farm. I went school. We had a with a paved road.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's fine. It'll be fine. Everything is tinged. That's the thing you have to realize.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Tinged?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Colored. By mood. By emotion. By past experience. There is no objective reality. You know there is no color in the universe, right? Only in our brains. Just electromagnetic frequencies. The brain tinges them.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I'm a physicist. I know what color is.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yes. You are. You do.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Colors are the deeds of light, its deeds and suffering.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>That's beautiful. Not physicist talk, but eminently poetic.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Well, I am a poet, after all.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Yes, you are. It's beautiful.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>This road seems excessively long.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Seems. That's the operative word. Time, another thing that exists only in the brain.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>And yet we get older.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Older and older. Or so it seems. Sometimes I feel I am much younger than I actually am. Like still a kid inside. Until I pass a mirror.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Is younger better?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <parenthetical>(quickly, confidently)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Yes.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I think so. It's admirable.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Youth is admirable? How can you admire a person for their age? It'd be like admiring a specific point in a stream.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's healthier, brighter... more fun. More attractive. Hopeful.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Like a Coca Cola commercial!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Almost all ground-breaking work in science, in the arts, is done by young people. Old people are the ash heap of youth.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Listen, Jake, I'm thinking we need to end --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Tah-dah.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>67pt.2 EXT. HIGH SCHOOL - NIGHT 67pt.2 \* The road has opened up to reveal a large high school. It is the high school in which the Janitor works.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Wow. I wasn't expecting anything so enormous.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>130 classroom, a gymnasium, 2 locker rooms -- boys, girls -- auditorium, 10 bathrooms, 6 administrative offices, teacher lounge, counseling center, nurse's office. It's regional, so 11 towns feed into it.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You certainly know your high school.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Like the back of my hand.</dialogue>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>EXT. HIGH SCHOOL - PARKING LOT - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>Jake pulls into the parking lot. It's empty, except for the Janitor's truck.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>There's someone here. That's weird.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>School maintenance? Janitor. Something.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(looking)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>There!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Trash can. I knew it.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(grabbing cups)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I'll be right back.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He opens his door, exits the car, slams the door. The Young Woman starts at the violence of the slam. She watches Jake as he trudges, struggling against the wind, toward the receptacle. It's slow going. Snow falls on the windshield, obscuring Jake. Then he is revealed again by the scraping windshield wipers. Obscured, revealed, obscured revealed. He arrives at the bin, opens the lid and just stands there, peering in.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What is he doing? Jake, c'mon, let's go.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She glances over at the pick-up truck. Jake places the lid back on; he's still holding the cups.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What are you doing?? Argh!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He looks toward the car, holds one finger up to indicate "one minute," and trudges off, disappearing behind the school.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What?? Jesus, Jake.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She reaches over to the driver's side and locks the car doors, looks behind her into the blackness. She glances at the truck, somehow made sinister by the lot's sodium vapor lamps.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ugh.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>For a long while, she watches the corner around which Jake has disappeared. She seems to be willing him to reappear. Eventually he does.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Yes! Let's go let's go let's go let's go...</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He waves and trudges toward the car: obscured, revealed, obscured, revealed. He arrives at the car, opens the door.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Where were you?!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake gets in, closes the door. He is covered in snow, out of breath.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Sorry. Sorry. That bin was filled with road salt. For the ice. I remembered there was a dumpster on the other side, near the loading dock. So... mission accomplished.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Good. Let's go.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's humid in here.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>His glasses are fogged. He turns the ignition key; the engine stops.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>There.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Kind of peaceful, no?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>More creepy than peaceful, I'd say.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I don't agree.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>I want to go.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>What's the rush all of a sudden?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>All of a sudden? All night I've been a broken record about getting home. I've given you, like, forty reasons I need to get home tonight.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I guess that's true.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>You guess?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I just thought, you know, since it's peaceful and quiet here and, Baby, it's cold outside --</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Really? You're going to quote a rape song at me to convince me to --</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>It's not a rape song.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>She keeps saying she wants to leave. He keeps ignoring her. What would you call that?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>She wants to stay. She's just afraid of what people will think.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>She asks him "What did you put in \* my damn drink?" \*</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Jesus, the song was written in 1936. It's not about roofies.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Roofies or not, he's trying to break down her defenses with strong liquor. And, anyway, I'm sorry, but they had mickeys in the thirties. It's a song about coercion.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Why are you getting so angry?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I just want to go home.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>To the farmhouse?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>No! Not to the fucking farmhouse. To my house, Jake! To my house!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Ok, ok.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He turns the ignition key. The car starts. He waits for the wipers to clear the snow from the windshield.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Thank you.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Y'know, he says, "What's the point of hurting my pride?" Like it's her job to make this guy feel sexually attractive.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Regardless of her own desires. That's not her responsibility.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I see that. You've convinced me. I'm sorry.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He leans over to give her a conciliatory kiss, which she accepts. The kiss turns a bit romantic. Jake suddenly pulls away.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Jesus!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What??</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>In the window!</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(looking toward school)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>What??</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>There was someone watching us.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(scanning windows)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I don't see anyone.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>He was there. Watching us. Like a goddamn pervert.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Let's go. Maybe he was just looking out the window, wondering what our car was doing here in the middle of the night.</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>Believe me, I am very familiar with that particular look.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>What does that mean?</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'm going to give him a piece of my mind is what it means. That is not acceptable.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Jake, really, let's just --</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Jake turns off the car, opens the door and exits car.</scene_description>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>I'll be right back. This is not acceptable.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Jake!</dialogue>
    <character>JAKE</character>
    <dialogue>At all!</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He slams the door and is gone, running toward the school. The Young Woman shivers, looks at the ignition. The key is missing.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Crap.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She sits there, shivering, watching Jake recede. Soon he is around the corner and gone. The Young Woman watches the school, turns and looks back at the road, settles back into her seat, puts her hands in her pockets and waits.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>This was a mistake. I shouldn't have come. I knew things between Jake and me were not going to work out. I think, if I'm honest, I knew from our very first conversation. There was something. Something needling. In the back of my brain. Some little voice whispering, this isn't right. This isn't for you. Turn back. But it's hard to say no. I was never taught that. It's easier to say ok. It's smoother. Feathers don't get ruffled. People don't get hurt. And, anyway, sometimes you're caught off-guard. The request comes, can I have your number. And the easiest way out is to say yes. And that yes leads to the next yes and then more yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and then you find yourself in a relationship. And it's too late to say no, or at least it has become much harder. Because you don't have a good reason. He's not a monster. He doesn't beat you.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>He's a nice guy and now you need a reason. But you fantasize about being rid of it, the whole thing. And none of it is fair to him, this constant unspoken pulling away. And you should've just said no thank you in the first place. But he's a nice guy and I imagine we've had some fun. I'm sure we have. I'm certain we've laughed. I'm certain the sex has been good, at least some of the time. It has to have been, although right now I have very little actual memory of it. Right now the whole thing seems vague. All this time together and I can't feel it. Where did it go?</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(trying to see through windshield)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Where did Jake go?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The windshield is obscured; she opens the door, pokes her head out, looks into the distance, searching for his figure amidst the swirling snow. She gets back in, closes the door, locks it.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>I'm so cold. Where is he? And how long does it take to get hypothermia? Maybe it's not a bad way to go, if you have to go. Numbness has its advantages. Sometimes it's the only way to get through. Just turn it all off, all the damn signals to the brain, all the noise, all the time.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Slow it down.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Slow it, slow it, until it all just stops.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman sits there in silence, shivering, staring at the quiet school.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Jesus, Jake. C'mon.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She sighs, opens the car door, exits, closes the door, immediately realizes, tries the door, it's locked behind her.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Shit. Shit.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She tries all the other doors. All locked.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Shit shit shit.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She looks at the school, heads toward it. As she walks, she stares up at the school's darkened windows, she looks behind her, she looks at the pick-up truck in the parking lot. She feels she's being watched through every black rectangle. She becomes self-conscious, and, incongruously, as she walks through the snow and wind, she attempts to fix her blowing \* hair. She rounds the corner and sees the dumpster Jake had mentioned. She approaches it, opens the lid. It is filled with hundreds of half-eaten B-r-r-r's. The Young Woman is startled, jumps back, the lid slams closed with a metal clang that echoes off the building. She makes her way to the school's glass front doors, peers in: a long, dim, empty hallway. She doesn't know what to do, she's scared to go in; she's too cold to stay outside. She rests her forehead against the glass of the door for a long moment.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(to herself)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Jake. Please.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She girds herself, enters the building.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. SCHOOL HALLWAY - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman walks cautiously down the hall. The shot mirrors the initial shot of the Janitor walking the same hall.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(quietly)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Jake?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Janitor appears in the distance at the end of the hall where it intersects with another. He is mopping, seems unaware of her. She gasps and hides in a doorway. Breathing hard, she peeks back down the hall; the Janitor is gone.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(quietly)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Jake, I want to go. Please.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She steps back out into the hall. The Janitor appears again in the intersecting hall, now mopping in the other direction. Again, the Young Woman jumps back into the doorway.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN (V.O.)</character>
    <dialogue>What am I doing here? This entire night makes no sense. I've lost myself in all of this, in this relationship, in this world of Jake. How is it one always finds oneself in a foreign country in relationships. In the land of Jake. We treat you right.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(looking toward entrance)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Maybe he's back out in the car? Can he have passed without me seeing him? I don't think so. He has to be in here somewhere. And even if he is out there, he wouldn't leave without me. He'd come looking for me. I'll wait, in the warmth, out of sight. Watching. For Jake. Is it possible that the janitor guy has done something to him? Hurt him somehow? If he's hurt Jake -- killed him, even -- what chance is there for me? I'll just wait. Till morning, if I have to. Till the school opens.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Unless it's a snow day. It's going to be a snow day tomorrow, isn't it? Of course it is. It's going to be a snow day tomorrow and nobody is coming. Shit. Jake. Ok. Still. In daylight I can walk to the road. There'll be somebody. A snowplow. A cop. I'll just sit tight. Unseen.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>She peeks down the hall. The hall is now seen from the Janitor's POV. He has spotted the Young Woman's head poking out. She sees him, pulls out of sight. He mops toward her, slow, methodically, deliberately, mumbling to himself. The mumbling, for the first time can partially be made out.</scene_description>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>Don't... Don't... You can't...</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Janitor continues toward her, drawn like a magnet.</scene_description>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>Don't... No... Mustn't...</dialogue>
    <scene_description>He arrives at the doorway in which she hides. He stops, seemingly unable to make the final step to see her. Her breathing is audible. Finally, he pokes his head around the locker. She is looking at him (at us), no recognition on her face.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Oh. Hello. I'm sorry. My boyfriend... I think he came in here. I think he went to school here. A while back. So maybe you know him. I don't know if you were here when he was a student. How would I know? Anyway, I'm locked out of his car. So I came in looking for him -- I hope that's ok -- But I didn't see him. So I'm waiting here, but I can go if that's not all right. You haven't seen anyone in here, by any chance, have you? I'm a little worried. You haven't seen him, have you?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>Silence. Then:</scene_description>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>What does your boyfriend look like?</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Um, It's so hard to describe people. Anyway, it's so long ago. I barely remember. We never even talked, is the truth. I'm not sure I even registered him. There were a lot of people. I was there with my girlfriend. She and I were celebrating our anniversary. Stopped in for a drink and this guy kept looking over at me. It's a nuisance. The occupational hazard of being female. You can't even go out for a drink. Always being looked at. A creeper, you know. I remember thinking, I wish my boyfriend were here, which is sort of sad, that if you're a woman, guys don't leave you alone unless you're with another guy, like you've been claimed, like you're property. Even then, not always. Anyway, I can't remember what he looked like. Why would I? Nothing happened. He was just one of thousands of such non-interactions in my life.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>It's like asking me if I can describe the mosquito that bit me on a certain evening forty years ago.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>So have you seen someone fitting that description.</dialogue>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>I haven't seen anyone.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Ok.</dialogue>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>I mean, other than you. I see you.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>I'm worried about him.</dialogue>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>I'm sure there's no need. He's safe if he's here. It's safe in here. Quiet.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <parenthetical>(studies his face)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Ok.</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(beat)</parenthetical>
    <dialogue>Is it ok, if I look around for him?</dialogue>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>Maybe take your wet shoes off. I've just cleaned the floors.</dialogue>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Thanks.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman takes off her shoes. The Janitor watches, her feet now in the big blue slippers. She smiles back at him briefly, sadly.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Bye.</dialogue>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>Yeah. Bye.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman pads silently down the hall, her voice receding.</scene_description>
    <character>YOUNG WOMAN</character>
    <dialogue>Jake? Jake? Jake?</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Janitor mops up the small puddles left by the Young Woman's shoes.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. HIGH SCHOOL - HALLWAY INTERSECTION - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman arrives at the hall intersection, stands still and looks down it. Jake is in the distance looking at her. A Second Young Woman, dressed identically to the Young Woman, emerges from another classroom doorway and stands behind her. A Young Man dressed as Jake emerges and stands behind Jake. The real Jake and Young Woman back away leaving only their replacements. Eerie, burbling orchestral music begins, vague and poorly remembered. The two replacements wave and hurry toward each other in a balletic run. They meet in the middle of the hall and embrace. "Jake" spins "Young Woman" around, lifts her, and the two perform a pas de deux expressing their love. The real Jake watches, profoundly moved, and the real Young Woman looks perplexed and anxious. The dance continues as a wedding ceremony is performed and the "Young Woman" walks down the school hall towards "Jake" and a "Minister." The Janitor appears, intercepts the "Young Woman" and pulls her away from the ceremony. She escapes down a surreal, dark hall, and ends up "outside" in a stylized version of the school exterior, struggling against the snow and wind, the Janitor in pursuit. He grabs her and she fights to disengage. "Jake" appears in the storm, and the Janitor and "Jake" engage in a balletic fight, ending when the Janitor pulls out a knife and stabs "Jake," leaving him to die on the ground, with bright red silk scarves spilling out around him on the snow. The Janitor grabs the "Young Woman" and carries her away, leaving the actual Young Woman, Jake, and dying "Jake." Jake and the Young Woman look at each other with resignation and walk off into the storm in opposite directions, soon becoming obscured by the blowing snow. The Janitor's POV, through which all this has been experienced: He wheels his cart toward the body of "Jake," lifts it, places it and the red scarves in the trash receptacle on the cart, and wheels it off.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. SCHOOL - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>Various shot of the Janitor cleaning, now in silence, punctuated by the occasional distant call of "Jake?" These become fewer and farther between, and even more distant. Eventually the calls cease.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. JANITOR'S CLOSET - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor, changes his shirt, collects his thermos, puts on his jacket.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>EXT. SCHOOL - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor trudges toward his truck in the empty parking lot. The truck is covered with snow. He glances over to where Jake's car had been parked; it is gone. He unlocks the truck's door, dumps his stuff on the passenger seat, pulls out a scraper, brushes the snow off his windows, gets in the truck, closes the door. INT TRUCK - NIGHT The Janitor pulls his ignition key from his pocket, brings it to the ignition, hesitates, doesn't insert it, puts it back in his pocket, watches the snow fall. Gradually, it begins to fall in a sort of time-lapse loop, otherworldly. The windshield gets covered with a thin layer of snow, still allowing the light from the parking lot through, casting the inside of the cab into yellow dimness. The Janitor shivers. The cab gets darker as more snow accumulates. His shivering becomes more violent, turns into a jerky timelapse. He rips off his gloves, his hat, wipes his brow. With thick, now clumsy hands, struggles to unbutton his shirt, succeeds, tears it off. Pulls off his boots, his socks, his pants, his underwear. He is now naked in the ever dimming cab. The snow- covered windshield begins to sizzle and percolate like TV screen "snow." This jitteriness turns to maggots, which fall away to reveal a suffering pig, who turns his head and acknowledges the Janitor with sorrowful eyes. The pig turns away and walks slowly toward the school. He looks back at the Janitor, urging him to follow. The Janitor gets out of the truck and walks, naked, behind the pig. His body shakes with cold.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. SCHOOL HALLWAY - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor follows the pig, who, on occasion, looks back as he walks. The pig talks to the Janitor.</scene_description>
    <character>PIG</character>
    <dialogue>It's not bad. Once you stop feeling sorry for yourself because you're just a pig, or, even worse, a pig infested with maggots. Someone has to be a pig infested with maggots, right? It might as well be you. It's the luck of the draw. You play the hand you're dealt. You make lemonade. You move on. You don't worry about a thing. \*</dialogue>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>That song has always made me cry.</dialogue>
    <character>PIG</character>
    <dialogue>I've always loved it. There is kindness in the world, y'know? You have to search for it, but it's there.</dialogue>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>You're kind.</dialogue>
    <character>PIG</character>
    <dialogue>Eh. I'm just evolving. Even now, even as a ghost, as a memory, as dust. As you will.</dialogue>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>We're the same?</dialogue>
    <character>PIG</character>
    <dialogue>Everything is the same. When you look close enough. As a physicist, you would know that. You, me, ideas. We're all one thing. Let's get you dressed.</dialogue>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>But I'm so hot.</dialogue>
    <character>PIG</character>
    <dialogue>Heat, cold. Variations on a theme. It's not important.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The pig leads the Janitor, now dressed in tails into the auditorium, a Nobel medallion around his neck..</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>INT. AUDITORIUM STAGE - NIGHT</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The Janitor steps onto the stage. The Oklahoma! set is there, looking very much like Jake's farmhouse. His mother, the young version, dressed like Aunt Eller, in grease paint old age make-up, sits in a rocking chair on the porch of the house. She smiles at him. The Janitor looks from her to the audience, which is filled with high school students, now dressed in tuxes and gowns. They applaud enthusiastically. The Young Woman, also in old age grease paint, is in the audience, too, smiling up lovingly at him. His Father, the Tulsey Town girls, Jake, all there.</scene_description>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>Thank you. My acceptance speech:</dialogue>
    <parenthetical>(clears throat)</parenthetical>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>I accept. I accept it all. I gratefully accept your acknowledgement, this award. I accept all that it entails. That this award comes near the end of a long, fruitful life in acknowledgement for the work I did decades ago. My quest has taken me through the physical --</dialogue>
    <scene_description>In the audience young Jake mouths along with this.</scene_description>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>-- the metaphysical, the delusional -- and back. And I have made the most important discovery of my life: It is only in the mysterious equations of love --</dialogue>
    <scene_description>In the audience, the Young Woman watches adoringly.</scene_description>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>-- that any logic or reasons can be found. I am only here tonight because of you. You are the reason I am. You are all my reasons. Thank you.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Young Woman is moved to tears. The Janitor sings, now dressed like a farmer. A stage set of a shack interior is rolled in behind him. It bears a striking resemblance to Jake's bedroom.</scene_description>
    <character>JANITOR</character>
    <dialogue>The floor creaks,/the door squeaks,/there's a field mouse a- nibblin on a broom/And I sit by myself/Like a cobweb on a shelf/By myself in a lonely room/But when there's a moon in my winder/And it slants down a beam crost my bed/Then the shadder of a tree/starts a-dancin on the wall/And a dream starts a dancin in my head/And all the things I wish fer/Turn out like I wanted them to be/And all the things I wish fer/Turn out like I want them to be/And I'm better'n that smart aleck cowhand/Who thinks he's better'n me!/And The girl that I want/Ain't afraid of my arms/And her own soft arms keep me warm/And her long tangled hair falls a-crost my face,/Jist like the rain in a storm!/The Floor creaks, the door squeaks/And the field mouse starts a-nibblin on the broom/And the sun flicks my eyes/It was all a pack of lies!/I'm awake in a lonely room/I ain't gonna dream about her no more!/I Ain't gonna leave her alone/Goin' outside,/Git myself a bride/Git me a woman to call my own.</dialogue>
    <scene_description>The Janitor finishes and is met with passionate, extended applause. He stands there for an uncomfortably long time, taking it in.</scene_description>
  </scene>
  <scene>
    <stage_direction>EXT. SCHOOL - MORNING</stage_direction>
    <scene_description>The storm has stopped. Silence. The sun is shining. The ground is covered in drifts of snow. In the empty parking lot, sits the Janitor's pick-up, a white truck-shaped lump of snow.</scene_description>
    <character>END</character>
  </scene>
</script>
A young woman contemplates ending her approximately seven-week relationship with her boyfriend Jake while on a trip to meet his parents at their farm. During the drive, Jake attempts to recite a poem he read when he was younger, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality", and asks the young woman to recite an original poem of hers to pass time. After she recites a morbid poem about coming home, they arrive at the farmhouse owned by Jake's parents. Jake takes her to the barn, where he recounts a story about how the farm's pigs died after being eaten alive by maggots. Throughout the film, the main narrative is intercut with footage of an elderly janitor working at a high school, including scenes in which he sees students rehearsing Oklahoma! and watches a romantic comedy film. Upon entering the farmhouse, the young woman notices scratches on the door leading to the basement. At dinner with Jake's parents, she (whose occupation and name change throughout) shows them photographs of her landscape paintings and explains how she met Jake at a trivia night in a bar, with narrative inconsistencies. Later, she notices a picture of Jake as a child, but becomes confused after initially recognizing the child as herself. She receives a call from a friend with a female name, and a mysterious male voice explains that there is "one question to answer". Over the course of the night, Jake's parents transform into their younger and older selves, though nobody on screen comments on this. When the young woman takes a nightgown down to the basement to wash, she discovers several janitor uniforms in the washing machine and finds posters for Ralph Albert Blakelock exhibitions that have images of paintings seemingly identical to her own. She also receives another call from the same mysterious voice. On the drive home, Jake refers to several events that evening which the young woman does not remember and then claims she drank a lot of wine. Word association leads to an extended critical discussion of John Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence. The couple stops at Tulsey Town, a drive-through ice cream stand, whose employees are students at the janitor's school. When the young woman is leaving, an employee with a rash says they are scared for her. Jake and the young woman cannot finish their sugary desserts, so he stops at his high school to throw the ice-cream cups away. After a heated argument in the parking lot about the lyrics of "Baby, It's Cold Outside", they share a kiss. Suddenly, Jake has a flashback of the janitor watching them from inside the school and decides to confront him, leaving the young woman alone in the car. Eventually, she decides to look for Jake inside the school. She meets the janitor and asks him where Jake is, but she cannot remember what Jake looks like. She tells the janitor that nothing happened between Jake and her on the night they met, instead claiming Jake made her uncomfortable by staring at her. The young woman discovers Jake at the end of a hall. They watch as people dressed like themselves and the janitor engage in a ballet, which ends when the janitor's dancer kills Jake's dancer with a knife. Having finished his shift, the janitor enters his car, but does not start the motor. He experiences hallucinations of Jake's parents arguing and animated Tulsey Town commercials. The janitor then takes off his clothes and walks back inside the school, led by the hallucination of a maggot-infested pig who tells him that "someone has to be the pig infested with maggots", that "everything is the same, when you look close enough", and that he should get dressed. On an auditorium stage, an old Jake receives a Nobel Prize and sings "Lonely Room" from Oklahoma! to an audience of people from his life, all of them in theatrical old-age makeup, who give him a standing ovation when he is done. In the final shot, the couple's car is not visible in the school parking lot, while the janitor's truck is covered in snow. Towards the end of the credits, scraping sounds and the engine of an approaching vehicle are heard.