A Ghost Story

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1

Why are you laughing?

I am so scared.

- Why?

- I don't know.

Don't be scared.

When I was little

and we used lo move all the lime,

I'd write these notes,

and I would fold them up really small...

and I would hide them in different places,

so that if 1 ever wanted to go back,

there'd be a piece of me there waiting.

- Did you ever go back?

- No.

See? That's what I'm saying.

'Cause I didn't need to.

What'd they say'?

They were just like, old rhymes and poems.

Things I wanted to remember about...

living in that house,

or what I liked about it.

Why did you leave?

Why'd you leave all those houses?

'Cause I didn't have a choice.

Some weird noises in this house.

What are you doin'?

I was just trying to see how heavy it was,

if I could move it.

I just had it tuned.

That was like a year ago.

But it's probably still in tune.

Should I try and find movers?

- For the piano?

- Yeah.

Mmm. Are we taking it with us?

She said we can if we want to.

Um... we can probably find

a better one if we just...

Is there something there?

What was that?

I don't know.

Maybe something fell on the piano.

What time is it?

My heart's racing.

Can I have a minute?

- Wait.

- Yes?

Never mind.

Are you okay?

- Are you sure?

- Yeah.

- I'll be just around the corner.

- Thank you.

No, no, it's not your fault.

I've been away.

Are you gonna be okay

to drive home?

Yeah. Are you?

Thanks for taking me home.

Yeah.

Call me this week.

Okay.

Hey.'

This shouldn't be so hard.

I really don't wanna talk about

this anymore tonight, okay?

Well, can we talk about it tomorrow?

Okay, maybe.

Here.

Are you runnin' late? S

Did you sleep too much?

All the awful dreams

Felt real enough

Is your lover there?

is she wakin' up?

Did she die in the night?

And leave you alone?

Alone

Mirror, mirror

There's your crooked nose

What a stupid game

Getting nothing done

With your longest track

Your highest score

While you crush your back

And lament the war

War

Am I runnin' late?

I get overwhelmed

All the awful dreams

All the bright screens

is my lover there?

Are we breakin' up?

Did she find someone else?

And leave me alone?

Alone

Okay?

Carlos!

No, no, no, no. Si, no.

Okay?

Yasmina.

Mama.

Breathe this moment like

it's gonna be my last one

Light it up, burn it down...

I don't know if you

believe in the spirit world.

- I do.

- You do?

Well, then this next phenomenon

will really fascinate you.

I know it sounds strange,

but it does begin with,

"Pick a card, any card, so pick one out.

And you got it?

- Burn the image into your mind.

- Yeah. Got it, got it.

I want you to watch this

very closely.

Because if the spirits are

with us in this haunted house...

they need to find the card.

Holy sh*t.

I don't-I don't-

I don't have a problem with it

if it's two people in love.

It's some sort of expression

of, you know, kind of...

It sounds like you don't think

women should do that.

If it's not gonna be that

and it's not gonna make us

any money, then why...

- And those are your two polarities?

- Polarities?

Priorities or whatever.

Money's just money.

You gotta take that

out of the equation. Now what?

Well, that's what I was saying.

It's not just...

No, no, you can find a reason.

And I wanna find out what happens, too!

So, no money.

What have you got left?

You've got... other people.

You got Clara, you've got time.

Time's a big one.

But you've got about as much

as anyone else, give or take.

What about God? Maybe you've got God.

Do you?

- What? Have God?

- Yes.

No.

Okay.

Well, here's howl break it down.

A writer writes a novel.

A songwriter writes a song.

A symphonist writes a symphony...

which is maybe the best example

because all the best ones

were written for God.

So, tell me what happens if Beethoven's

writing his Ninth Symphony"

and suddenly he wakes up one day

and realizes that God doesn't exist.

So, suddenly all of these notes

and chords and harmonies.

That were intended to,

you know, supersede the flesh,

you realize, "Oh, that's just physics."

So Beethoven says,

"Shoot, God doesn't exist,

so I guess I'm writing this

for other people.

It's just nuts and bolts now."

He didn't have any children,

that I can recall,

- but if he did...

- He had a nephew.

- He had a what?

- A nephew, he had a nephew.

Okay. Great. So he-he writes it for him.

Or Immortal Beloved.

Yes.

Or for whoever that was.

But let's leave love out of this

and let's wrap this all up

under the blanket

of someone thinking,

"This is something

that they'll remember me for."

And they did. And we do.

And sure enough,

we do what we can to endure.

We build our legacy piece by piece,

and maybe the whole world

will remember you,

or maybe just a couple of people,

but you do what you can to

make sure you're still around

after you're gone.

And so we're still reading this book,

we're still singing the song,

and kids remember their parents

and their grandparents

and everyone's got their family tree,

and Beethoven's got his symphony,

And we've got it too.

And everyone will

keep listening to it f...

for the foreseeable future.

But...

that's where things start breaking down,

because your kids...

Do you have kids?

Wait, who here has kids?

You? Your kids are gonna die.

Yours too. Yours too.

Hey, just sayin'. They're all gonna die,

and their kids will die,

and so on, and so on.

And then there's gonna be

one big-one big tectonic shift.

Yosemite will blow and

the western plates will shift,

and the oceans will rise,

the mountains will fall,

and 90 percent of humanity will be gone.

One fell swoop. This is just science.

Whoever's left will...

go to higher ground

and social order will fall away,

and we will revert

to scavengers and hunters

and gatherers,

but maybe there's someone...

someone who one day hums

a melody they used to know.

And it gives everyone

a little bit of hope.

Mankind's on the verge of being wiped out,

but it keeps going a little bit longer

because someone hears someone

else hum a melody in a cave

and the physics of it in their ear

make them feel something other

than fear or hunger or hate,

and mankind carries on

and civilization gets back on track.

And now you're thinking

you're gonna finish that book.

But it won't last.

'Cause by and by, the planet's gonna die.

In a few billion years

the sun will become a red giant

and it'll, uh,

eventually swallow Earth whole.

This is a fact.

Now, maybe by that point,

we'll have set up shop on some

completely different planet.

Good for us. Maybe we've figured out a way

of carrying with us

all these things that matter.

They've got a photocopy

of the Mona Lisa out there,

someone sees it, mixes a little bit

of alien dirt with some spit,

paints something new,

the whole thing keeps going.

[Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" playing.

But even that doesn't matter.

Because even if some form of mankind

carries some recording

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