It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

1. On the way to the bus stop,

2. Bill saw somebody he recognized walking towards him,

3. but he couldn't remember his name.

4. He began to think of things to say

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

6. As they drew nearer, their eyes locked,

7. uncertain if the other was going to stop to talk.

8. The person greeted Bill, as Bill mixed up the phrases,

9. "Whats up?"

10. with, "How's it going?"

11. Confused, the person blurted out,

12. "Thanks," before he knew what he was saying.

13. Words caught in Bill's throat and he replied,

14. "Weh."

15. They did a sort of awkward half-turn

16. and then continued on,

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

18. They never saw each other again,

19. and a day later had each forgotten the whole thing.

20. Later that night, Bill sat down and put on a big sweater

21. but it only made him sleepy.

22. In the supermarket, Bill was always very careful

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

24. as the fruit in the front was at crotch-level

25. to the other customers.

26. An old man who smelled of gasoline held up an onion

27. and said, "Big onion," to no one in particular.

28. He smiled at Bill and Bill looked at his socks.

29. At the check-out counter, Bill found himself

30. behind a big guy whose t-shirt read,

31. "Second place is the first loser."

32. The check-out girl said, "How are you doing today?"

33. Bill said, "Fine thanks, how are you?"

34. She didn't answer.

35. Bill felt used.

36. As he waited for his next bus,

37. Bill stared at a torn shopping bag

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

39. and anxiously sucked blood out of a sore in the corner

40. of his mouth.

41. Bill dropped his keys on the counter

42. and stood there staring at them,

43. suddenly thinking about all the times

44. he'd thrown his keys there before...

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

46. repeating the same tasks and rituals in his apartment,

47. over and over again.

48. But then he wondered if, realistically...

49. this was his life...

50. and the unusual part was his time spent doing other things.

51. Bill sat down and read a celebrity interview.

52. Then he watched the ants crawl around in his sink.

53. That night, Bill dreamt of a monstrous fish head

54. that fed upon his skull.

55. In the morning,

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

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

58. It always seemed as though

59. the manatee was staring at him.

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

61. He thought some food might help him get going,

62. but felt kind of strange eating in front

63. of the television without having it on.

64. Pretty soon he was watching a boxing match

65. on a Mexican channel.

66. He'd been watching a lot of boxing lately

67. but didn't really know why.

68. In the 4th round there was an accidental head butt

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

70. They showed it over and over again,

71. in slow motion.

72. Before he knew it,

73. Bill had eaten the entire box of crackers.

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

75. He had a sudden urge to talk to somebody,

76. so Bill phoned his ex-girlfriend and told her

77. about the manatee on his calendar.

78. "Did you ever see the movie about the giant manatee

79. that attacked a city?" she asked.

80. "I think you mean giant mantis, said Bill.

81. "Oh yeah", she said.

82. "Giant mantis."

83. The next morning, Bill felt even worse.

84. Downtown, the hot smell of manure blew past him

85. as he walked.

86. Bill soon came upon three dead horses in the road,

87. apparently struck down by a large moving vehicle.

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

89. He met his ex-girlfriend during her lunch break

90. and they took a walk to the park.

91. He noticed that every time he was near her,

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

93. as though everything were ok.

94. Mostly they talked about death.

95. They agreed that being buried seemed too claustrophobic,

96. and Bill didn't want to be cremated

97. after he'd read that the intense heat boils fluids

98. in the skull until your head explodes.

99. He decided that he'd want his body shot off

100. into space in a rocket ship.

101. He figured it'd be too expensive to launch

102. the weight of his entire body, but maybe just sending

103. his head into space would be good enough,

104. preferably in front of a little window.

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

106. if she knew Bill's severed head was floating around

107. above her in space.

108. Bill was given a new booklet

109. at the clinic, discussing potential memory loss

110. in his treatment.

111. Inside was a cartoon character saying,

112. "I don't know about you folks,

113. but I could lose my keys eatin' breakfast."

114. His neighbor, trying to be helpful but failing,

115. cornered Bill in the parking lot

116. to explain how cryogenic scientists

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

118. when microscopic robots could repair it.

119. Bill daydreamed about all the brains in jars

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

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

122. scattered fragments of partial dreams

123. or lost memories locked deep within that dead tissue..

124. or whether this entire archive is immediately erased,

125. the moment that the body fails.

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

127. how everyone's just little more than that frightened,

128. fragile brain stem...

129. surrounded by meat and physics,

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

131. insulated in the shells of their skulls

132. and lower middle class houses...

133. afraid of change, afraid of decisions,

134. afraid of pain...

135. stuck in traffic, listening to terrible music.

136. His neighbor stared at him and said,

137. "Last night, I dreamt all my toes fell off."

138. On the way to his front door,

139. Bill's other neighbor said,

140. "Sup, as in, "What's up?"

141. Inside he noticed a weird wet spot on his mattress

142. that he didn't remember being there before.

143. Bill watched part of a documentary program

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

145. Scientists explored its colon and everything

146. on live television.

147. Bill wondered if the ice man

148. could ever have imagined this would one day

149. have happened to him.

150. That night, Bill dreamt he was at the seaside,

151. desperately throwing dead bodies off of a little boat.

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

153. He noticed somebody had written,

154. "I love you," in the playground sand

155. and he thought that was really beautiful.

156. As he continued on, a sudden dribble

157. of urine shot down his pant leg.

158. That was unexpected.

159. Then some little fat kid with a deformed foot tried

160. to sell him a magazine subscription.

161. Bill looked at the list of magazines for sale

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

163. Then he wondered why he wondered that.

164. On his way to the clinic,

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

166. Even his pamphlet seemed different.

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

168. but Bill pretended not to notice.

169. His doctor said he had some discouraging news:

170. The latest tests ruled out

171. the possibility of further surgeries,

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

173. He wanted to start Bill on something new.

174. He couldn't think of any reason

175. why Bill should be seeing things though

176. and asked him a series of questions.

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

178. lot of stress right now..."

179. Bill picked up his new medication,

180. went home, and masturbated for seven hours.

181. He woke up the following morning

182. and thought his room seemed different.

183. His mouth was bleeding...

184. four of his teeth had fallen out in the night.

185. They looked sort of like dog teeth.

186. Everyone in the supermarket looked like some sort of demon.

187. And they all had gigantic, bacteria-ridden crotches

188. buried in the all the goddamned produce!

189. It felt like his whole body was sparkling.

190. His shoes felt as though they were filling with blood

191. and his hands smelled like copper.

192. When he got home, he found a pair of Lion King slippers

193. in his closet

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

195. "The pipe is leaking!

196. The pipe is leaking!"

197. Bill could read the thoughts of his waitress,

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

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

200. "I am made nervous by a clone

201. that grows beneath my closet..."

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

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

204. "I am sexually inadequate."

205. "Why do you keep treating me this way?"

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

207. "The effects of tranquilizers on animals

208. at higher altitudes are unpredictable..."

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

210. After lunch, Bill put on the Lion King slippers

211. and flew to the bus stop.

212. Bill dropped his keys on the counter

213. and stood there staring at them,

214. suddenly thinking about all the times

215. he'd thrown his keys there before,

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

217. But then he wondered if, realistically,

218. this was his life...

219. this was his life...

220. this was his life...

221. "The power of Christ compels you!

222. The power of Christ compels you!"

223. His mother came to take care of him,

224. all the way from Omaha.

225. She was a waitress and often smelt

226. of baby powder and cheese.

227. They spent a lot of time together doing puzzles

228. and watching television.

229. One morning as Bill was staring at the patterns in the carpet,

230. she noticed a loose thread in his collar.

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

232. she said, and crumpled to the floor.

233. In that moment, Bill thought she looked really old.

234. Sometimes the fluids in the IV put a funny taste in his mouth.

235. Bill awoke to find beautiful sunlight streaming

236. through his window.

237. He tried to climb through it,

238. but didn't have the strength to stand.

239. The next morning, Bill actually felt pretty good.

240. The day after that, he felt even better.

241. Then he felt a lot worse.

242. But the following day, Bill felt just fine.

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

244. his doctor said.

245. "Maybe Bill's body is simply rallying

246. before finally giving up."

247. His uncle, whom Bill had not even noticed in the room,

248. had taken a lot of time off work

249. to fly in all the way from Tulsa.

250. He looked vaguely annoyed.

251. After another two days,

252. they concluded Bill was not going to die,

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

254. She also had to have his casket returned,

255. at great expense and inconvenience.

256. Bill had to go back to work the following Tuesday.

257. It rained for the entire bus ride.

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

259. His half-brother, Randall came along:

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

261. whose mind was as misshapen as his legs.

262. No one at school really knew him

263. because he always rode a separate bus...

264. and was taught to stand within the confines

265. of a tetherball circle every recess.

266. In the late afternoon, Randall was over

267. with the adults when he spotted a gull overhead.

268. His eyes burst with emotion

269. and he suddenly took off stumbling after it.

270. Tears streaming down his little face,

271. he stretched his aluminum hooks as wide

272. as he could towards the sun, howling,

273. "Booooooon! Booooooon!"

274. and disappeared into the deep blue sea.

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

276. Bill's mother put a heavy coat over him

277. whenever he left the house,

278. for fear that he might fall victim

279. to something called "walking pneumonia."

280. She starting doing this the winter after losing Randall,

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

282. In the summers,

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

284. These were the days she rarely left the house

285. and shaved the cat on weekends.

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

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

288. His parents argued again that night and she threw meat.

289. His stepfather stormed to the door,

290. where he turned his face up towards a hole

291. in the ceiling and yelled,

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

293. She stared at the front door

294. and rocked there in place, saying,

295. "aaa aaa aaa aaa aaa aaa aaa."

296. Every now and then at school,

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

298. His hair was finally growing back.

299. After completing the clinic's daily memory quiz,

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

301. Yesterday, he spent thirty seconds

302. trying to open his front door with his mailbox key.

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

304. when they'd stayed up late drinking

305. and Bill slept on the couch.

306. In the morning, he sat on the toilet seat

307. and quietly watched her put on her make-up.

308. That afternoon, she told him it was over.

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

310. helps Bill find the right battery

311. for his wall clock.

312. He had taken a walk to the park,

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

314. At home he makes toast, but changes his mind.

315. He's been having trouble sleeping again,

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

317. Whenever Grandma would visit and he'd show her his drawings,

318. she'd often imagine how easily she could toss little Bill

319. into the fireplace...

320. or even through a thin window...

321. for he was still young and quite small, and floppy...

322. and she reckoned light enough for a woman of her size

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

324. In the middle of the night she opens the drawer

325. to find the preserved cat head from last week.

326. She can feel the fish smothering her brain,

327. and the magic scrubbing of their furry little heads

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

329. and she decides this is

330. because their little heads are of low quality...

331. and she needs more of them...

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

333. little heads with richer skin and better hair-dos

334. and cleaner little ears and clearer eyes...

335. They said she had a tumor and was suffering from seizures

336. and dementia.

337. Bill didn't know what those words meant,

338. but he had ideas.

339. Grandma was born in Bootblack, Wyoming,

340. two years after the great mud storms

341. drowned all the hogs.

342. Her father serviced electric machines...

343. and once strangled a rock in a fit of religious excitement.

344. He enjoyed wood...

345. and telling the children late-night stories

346. of how his own Papa used to tame the wilderness.

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

348. when he was cut in half by a train.

349. Grandma's older brother became a preacher

350. who grew his mole hairs long to purify his soul.

351. In his early years, he secretly fathered

352. an illegitimate child and smothered it one night

353. in the abandoned stable.

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

355. to have seen an aquatic creature make off

356. with the sheriff's prize cow.

357. He was eventually crippled with lead poisoning and polio.

358. And was killed by a train.

359. Grandma's little sister, Polly,

360. had beautiful golden hair

361. and pounded at imaginary animals with a hammer.

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

363. And catching on fire.

364. After Polly's death, Grandma's mother cut out her tongue

365. and vigorously enjoyed taking health tonics

366. and prescription medications.

367. A wild man wandered into town that summer

368. and beat the church organist with a shovel.

369. He defecated what looked like a pile of blueberries

370. on the family porch and disappeared,

371. howling into the marsh.

372. Nobody knew that this wild man

373. was in fact Grandma's great-uncle...

374. a forgotten, unwanted child who'd been fed carbolic acid

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

376. He ate mud and sticks

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

378. He died alone in a field one summer morning

379. while dreaming of the moon.

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

381. In their later years, Grandma's family

382. moved to the big city, where her mother lived out

383. the rest of her days making jam...

384. and persecuting Jews.

385. There was a bush in front of their building

386. in the shape of a heart that made her cry

387. every time she saw it.

388. She died alone while Grandma was away at boarding school,

389. surrounded by visions of phantoms.

390. Grandpa died eleven years before Grandma did.

391. He used to sit next to her every Sunday,

392. but now she plays his bingo card for him.

393. Last night, Bill dreamt he was young again,

394. in a field with friends at the seaside.

395. A big happy seal barked at them and bounded

396. from the water to play soccer.

397. He was pretty good.

398. It was like an animal movie.

399. Then the seal hit the ball a little too excited

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

401. in an adjacent field really hard in the chest.

402. It seemed like maybe he had a heart condition

403. or something because he wasn't moving.

404. Everyone sort of froze.

405. The seal retreated to the sea.

406. Nobody knew what to do.

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

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

409. He's been putting some weight back on

410. and his doctor had said that was good news.

411. At the bus stop his left testicle ached

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

413. Not much happened at work.

414. Bill made a pyramid out of three staplers.

415. And the new guy swallowed a paper clip

416. and was rushed out in a wheelchair.

417. The guy in the next cubicle over told Bill about a thing

418. he saw on TV

419. about identical twins who were separated at birth

420. but had individually grown up to be serial killers.

421. It was as though they didn't have any choice

422. in what they turned into.

423. "Genetics is pretty messed up, he said,

424. as his chewing gum flung itself from his mouth.

425. At lunch he told Bill about a physics book

426. he was reading about time.

427. How the passing of time is just an illusion,

428. because all of eternity is actually taking place at once.

429. The past never vanishes away,

430. and the future has already happened.

431. All of history is fixed and laid out,

432. like an infinite landscape of simultaneous events

433. that we simply happen to travel through in one direction.

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

435. that somewhere before,

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

437. At home Bill watched the microwave spin his food

438. and daydreamed about the Galapagos Islands.

439. He'd purchased the new brand of paper towels

440. that had hundreds of little raised bumps

441. across every sheet.

442. He found a message on the answering machine...

443. that was sorry to inform him

444. his mother had just died that morning.

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

446. after skipping her medication.

447. And was hit by a train.

448. She'd reserved her own funeral plot years in advance

449. in order to be buried alongside her parents...

450. but due to a clerical error

451. had to be placed fifty yards away,

452. between a coffin full of rocks

453. and a rich woman's golden retriever.

454. After the funeral, Bill went through her old storage boxes

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

456. Among the many pictures of relatives

457. and people he never knew

458. were several photographs of bacon... and lumber.

459. He also found an old series of strange portraits

460. that had been neatly labeled, for unknown future reference.

461. Scattered throughout the box were forgotten photos

462. of himself as a young boy.

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

464. and dies as the years pass...

465. how everyone is slowly reconstructed

466. out of continuously changing pieces.

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

468. how his ridiculous, ingrown cells had long ago stolen

469. this happy dead kid's identity,

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

471. Beneath the album

472. was a folder of his mother's medical records.

473. Attached to her initial diagnosis

474. was a physician's note

475. that strongly recommended she never have a child.

476. He pictures himself having trouble breathing

477. and waking to a roomful of concerned faces.

478. He'd been terrified of dying his entire life,

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

480. death was always in the back of his head,

481. around every corner, and hovering on each horizon.

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

483. but in his carefree youth it had almost seemed like

484. an abstract, impossible thing to ever happen to him.

485. But with each passing decade,

486. he began to gauge the time he probably had left,

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

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

489. You will only get older.

490. The next thing you know, you're looking back

491. instead of forward.

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

493. sleepless nights, and denials,

494. Bill finally finds himself staring his death

495. in the face...

496. surrounded by people he no longer recognizes

497. and feels no closer attachment to

498. than the thousands of relatives who'd come before.

499. And as the sun continues to set,

500. he finally comes to realize the dumb irony

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

502. This stupid, awkward moment of death that had invaded

503. and distracted so many days with stress and wasted time.

504. If only he could travel back and impart some wisdom

505. to his younger self.

506. If only he could at least tell the young people

507. in this room.

508. He lifts an arm to speak but inexplicably says,

509. "it smells like dust and moonlight."

510. He'd forgotten years ago

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

512. and it was forever stuck on 11:57.

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

514. in the first place,

515. since it was sort of in an awkward nook

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

517. Near the bottom of the storage box,

518. Bill found an old notebook he'd never seen before...

519. filling the pages inside, his mother had repeatedly

520. practiced her handwriting, so she could send him off

521. to school with the best-looking notes.

522. He calls his ex-girlfriend

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

524. This morning he couldn't remember

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

526. He decides to make toast...

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

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

529. His doctor has nothing but good news.

530. Bill has continued to make terrific progress

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

532. He tells Bill that if he'd not known his medical history,

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

534. On his way to lunch, Bill smiles and thinks for the first time

535. that maybe everything will be—

536. Bill was born late Tuesday morning

537. into a world of orange and red.

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

539. He likes sunbeams... and rockets...

540. and the smell of the backyard in the early morning.

541. He likes tigers... and trees...

542. and melted chocolate ice cream...

543. and watching the lights while falling asleep

544. in the back seat.

545. Someone sits on the shore

546. and tells him how the waves have been there

547. long before Bill existed...

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

549. Bill looks out at the water

550. and thinks of all the wonderful things

551. he will do with his life.

552. "Bill? Can you hear me, Bill?"

553. "Look at me, Bill. Look at me."

554. "140 over 90."

555. "Bill, can you hear me?"

556. "Bill?"

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

558. The last thing Bill can remember

559. is speaking to his ex-girlfriend...

560. bird wings...

561. and the smell of black licorice.

562. He watches dust float across the sunbeam above his head.

563. And then he goes back to sleep.

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

565. hidden by curtains

566. who communicates to the nursing staff through a row of buttons

567. that can play five different electronic sentences...

568. but more often than not, he only presses one of them:

569. "I am in pain."

570. Every afternoon, the reflections of sunlight

571. from the traffic below cast colorful patterns

572. across their ceiling.

573. In the mornings, the sunlight illuminates.

574. Matthew's curtain and makes it look beautiful

575. even though it's just gray.

576. His ex-girlfriend's been visiting lately

577. and they talk for hours about current events.

578. Sometimes they eat ice cream bars.

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

580. Bill is introduced to a new doctor

581. and given a short interview.

582. He doesn't know what month it is,

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

584. He can't remember his address,

585. so he supposes he must have always lived here.

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

587. in the grip of his left hand.

588. Bill is asked to describe a series of photographs.

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

590. but is very confused by some of the others.

591. He also has difficulty distinguishing the faces

592. of people he knows.

593. All of these people really just look the same.

594. And though he can recognize his ex-girlfriend

595. because of her long hair...

596. he can't remember her name.

597. He tells the doctor

598. he has a fish living inside of his head,

599. "possibly a trout."

600. It'll be another night before it dawns on him

601. that something seems missing.

602. All the memories the doctor asked him to recall today

603. are suddenly out of his grasp.

604. So many years of faces and moments...

605. are mostly just a vague feeling now.

606. The years are slipping out of his head.

607. Yesterday, a gardener with a hose

608. blasted all the sparrow nests from the second-story awning

609. of the building next door...

610. raining mud and little broken eggs into the parking lot.

611. Another test has been arranged

612. and Bill is taken to a white room.

613. A radiologist makes an incision

614. and pushes a catheter into his femoral artery.

615. The catheter is carefully pushed through his stomach

616. to his heart, up through his chest,

617. and into his head, where a special dye is introduced

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

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

620. A powerful anesthetic is introduced

621. to temporarily shut down the left hemisphere of his brain.

622. And for the remaining half of Bill,

623. the test begi—

624. "Bill? Can you hear me?"

625. "Bill, can you look up here for me?

626. Can you tell me what these objects are?"

627. "Bill, can you tell me what this is?"

628. "Bill, can you add up these numbers for me?"

629. "You're doing great, Bill."

630. "Okay.

631. And what do these numbers add up to?"

632. "Look at me, Bill, look at me.

633. Bill, look at me."

634. "Okay, Bill, and can you tell me who this is?"

635. "It's okay, Bill, you're doing great."

636. "And can you tell me who this is?"

637. "Bill, can you tell me who this is?

638. Do you remember her?"

639. Today she's joined by her boyfriend,

640. a young man named Steve who spends most of the afternoon

641. in the corner quietly staring at Matthew's curtain.

642. "I am in pain."

643. The doctor explains to her that Bill may be having trouble

644. understanding past tense and present tense.

645. It may also be difficult for Bill to understand

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

647. When the brain is confronted with major memory loss,

648. it often fills in the blanks with confabulated stories:

649. False memories, people who never existed...

650. invented conclusions to make everyday life less confusing...

651. and to somehow rationalize what's happening to him.

652. Today they will chat awkwardly.

653. Bill's been unable to stay on one subject

654. for more than a few moments

655. and seems to get easily frustrated.

656. She will say she didn't know

657. why she'd brought Steve along yesterday,

658. and admits he'd been so shaken

659. by the experience that he quietly cried in the car

660. on the way home.

661. The sparrows have already begun to rebuild,

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

663. He dreams he's part of a rocket crew,

664. re-entering the earth's atmosphere.

665. As they rapidly descend, it's believed

666. that eating ice cream bars will help prevent them

667. from having strokes.

668. As the heat intensifies, Bill eats his ice cream bar

669. and secretly hopes that if something bad had to happen,

670. the ship wouldn't explode,

671. but just that everyone else would have strokes.

672. A final battery of tests are ordered

673. to positively rule out the chance of surgery.

674. Highly drugged, Bill will have no memory of these tests

675. other than a terrible noise to his right...

676. and a brief vision of a seahorse...

677. and a falling tree.

678. This morning he can't remember

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

680. It could be hours... or maybe it's been weeks.

681. His uncle, whom Bill had not even noticed in the room,

682. looks out the window and talks about Bill's mother.

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

684. until it's already too late."

685. And then he says nothing.

686. The TV in the room is always on mute

687. and behind his uncle's head,

688. Bill watches a superhero quietly melt a monster's face.

689. His doctor visits and asks if Bill might be more comfortable

690. at home for a few days under family care,

691. until the final results come in.

692. A neighbor must have put these groceries

693. in his apartment for him,

694. which was a very nice gesture.

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

696. he decides to walk around the block.

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

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

699. He walks down his side street...

700. alongside the bridge past the farmer's market...

701. and back up the main thoroughfare.

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

703. he decides to take a walk around the block.

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

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

706. He walks down his side street...

707. alongside the bridge past the farmer's market...

708. and back up the main thoroughfare.

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

710. he decides to take a walk around the blo—

711. That hand is dropping everything.

712. Wasn't he supposed to call somebody?

713. What was her name?

714. What in the hell is wrong with this mug?

715. Does he really need this much food?

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

717. has he been sick?

718. A doctor carefully explains test results with him.

719. He goes over numbers and information

720. that Bill doesn't understand, and reiterates things

721. that Bill doesn't remember.

722. He's momentarily quiet...

723. and then tells Bill he doesn't have very long to live.

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

725. He decides to walk around the block.

726. On the side of the road he sees

727. a woman's tennis shoe filled with leaves,

728. and it fills him with inexplicable sadness.

729. He walks down his side street and sees striking colors

730. in the faces of the people around him...

731. details in these beautiful brick walls

732. and weeds that he must have passed every day

733. but never noticed.

734. The air smells different,

735. brighter somehow, and the currents under the bridge

736. look strange and vivid and the sun is warming his face

737. and the world is clumsy and beautiful and new.

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

739. asleep for God knows how long,

740. and something has violently shaken him... awake.

741. His bathmats are gorgeous.

742. The grain patterns in his cheap wood cabinets

743. vibrate something deep within him.

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

745. He's never really appreciated these things...

746. all this detail.

747. He's never noticed...

748. detail... ... he's alive...

749. he's never noticed...

750. he's alive...

751. he's alive...

752. The stars rattle him to the core...

753. how these lights have traveled for tens

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

755. how somewhere far away our own sun looks

756. just like one of these...

757. how many of the stars no longer even exist,

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

759. an impression from a ghost...

760. an amazing, infinite time machine every night

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

762. He wants to stop people in the street and say,

763. "Isn't this amazing?

764. Isn't everything amazing?"

765. He runs to the car rental place

766. and finds himself a freeway and drives all night,

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

768. absorbing everything he can before it all fades again

769. with the morning.

770. He's got the keys to this car.

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

772. the last time he slept.

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

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

775. and nervously lifts and hangs up the receiver.

776. He asks to borrow Bill's pencil

777. and then places a call to his daughter.

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

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

780. Then he says, "Fantastic, fantastic,

781. and hangs up the phone.

782. Although it looks like the wind

783. had been knocked out of him,

784. he presents the pencil back to Bill with a little flourish,

785. as though proud no harm had come to it

786. while in his possession.

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

788. where hundreds of feet below,

789. the deep sea swells up against the rocks.

790. And if you lean over the edge and squint your eyes

791. just right, you can barely make out the gray shapes

792. of all the cars that had driven off the cliff

793. over the years, sunken deep beneath the surface.

794. And as each wave washes slowly over them,

795. the undertow quietly pulls their headlights

796. on and off...

797. on an endless loop, growing slowly dimmer over the years

798. until the day comes that they fade completely.

799. He's at a house now.

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

801. with a flashlight pointed at the ceiling,

802. pretending he was an astronaut soaring over the moon.

803. A familiar person's here.

804. He's not sure how he found him,

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

806. and Bill is given an address.

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

808. but it's important Bill have it now.

809. An address where he can find his father.

810. Bill's real father.

811. A man who was gone before he was born,

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

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

814. he's not sure...

815. and with every mile he loses a few more memories...

816. and he finds another motel,

817. and that night he eats a lot of ice cream

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

819. He's in a nursing home...

820. is he old?

821. A room full of windows...

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

823. to the front counter...

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

825. a man who's been here for over ten years,

826. but rarely had a visitor.

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

828. or who exactly this other person is.

829. But they sit and they watch a game show together.

830. And when it's time for bill to leave,

831. he stands and says something beautiful to him.

832. And neither of them understand what he means exactly,

833. but the old man begins to cry anyway...

834. and they will never see each other again.

835. He's driving a car.

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

837. he figures he should just keep driving the car.

838. And sometimes he sings.

839. And sometimes he cries.

840. And the left side of his body is beginning

841. to grow slack and numb.

842. And all he wants to do is just keep driving,

843. somehow to keep on driving,

844. he has no more directions to follow

845. but he fills the car with gas again and again

846. and keeps going into the night,

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

848. It's such a beautiful day.

849. Wait a minute.

850. He's not going to die here...

851. but he doesn't die here.

852. No, no, no, no, no.

853. Bill, get up.

854. Bill?

855. Get up, Bill.

856. No, he can't die here.

857. He's not gonna die here.

858. He can't ever die.

859. Bill?

860. Bill?

861. He will spend hundreds of years traveling the world,

862. learning all there is to know.

863. He will learn every language.

864. He will read every book.

865. He will know every land.

866. He will spend thousands of years

867. creating stunning works of art.

868. He will learn to meditate to control all pain.

869. As wars will be fought...

870. and great loves found...

871. and lost.

872. And found...

873. lost...

874. and found.

875. And found...

876. and found...

877. and memories built upon memories until life runs

878. on an endless loop.

879. He will father hundreds of thousands of children...

880. whose own exponential offspring

881. he'll slowly lose track of through the years.

882. Whose millions of beautiful lives will all eventually

883. be swept again from the Earth.

884. And still, Bill will continue.

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

886. But death will forever be a stranger to him.

887. People will come and go,

888. until names lose all meaning.

889. Until people lose all meaning

890. and vanish entirely from the world.

891. And still, Bill will live on.

892. He will befriend the next inhabitants of the Earth.

893. Beings of light who revere him as a god.

894. And Bill will outlive them all.

895. For millions and millions of years.

896. Exploring, learning, living...

897. Until the Earth is swallowed beneath his feet.

898. Until the Sun is long since gone.

899. Until time loses all meaning and the moment comes

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

901. and sees them whether his eyes are closed or open.

902. Until he forgets his name

903. and the place where he'd once come from.

904. He lives and he lives,

905. until all of the lights go out.