STAY Page #10

.

Henry, tormented by what he sees on screen, keeps looking

back at the projector's white light.

HENRY (CONT'D)

Stop! Stop! Turn it off!

On screen:
the boy smoking a cigarette (and now, if we

haven't before, we recognize that it's a younger Henry on

screen). Arriving for his first day of freshman year at

Columbia. Shooting pool with friends in a smoky bar. Sitting

in the bleachers cheering for the New York Yankees.

HENRY (CONT'D)

(beginning to sob)

Stop! Stop!

Walking down Broadway with the GREEN-EYED WOMAN, whom we

recognize from the driver's POV sequences.

Driving across the Brooklyn Bridge with the green-eyed woman

and two passengers in back whose faces we can't make out.

HENRY (CONT' D)

(sobbing; barely able to

speak)

Stop... stop...

A terrible noise fills the theater-- steel colliding with

steel at high speed. The screen goes black.

Henry bolts up from his seat and runs from the theater.

After a few seconds, two words appear on the bottom of the

screen, a subtitle.

FORGIVE ME.

The subtitle does not fade away. The men in the theater stare

at the screen. Nobody says a word.

59.

EXT. TWELFTH STREET -- DAWN

Sam parks his car down the block from his building and walks

toward home. Halfway there he stops to watch piano movers at

work across the street.

They are the same piano movers we saw before, and they seem

to be hauling the same piano into the same apartment.

PIANO MOVER 1

Easy, easy.

Sam stops in his tracks. He has been here before.

A small boy, accompanied by his mother, runs down the street

holding a red balloon. He trips and falls and the balloon

begins to float away.

.

BOY:

Wait! Wait!

The workmen hear the boy's cries and see the balloon. Piano

Mover 1 makes a valiant effort to capture the escaping

balloon:
he runs after it and leaps... but he can't quite

reach it.

Sam stares at the rising balloon in disbelief.

PIANO MOVER 1

Sorry, kid. It's gone to balloon

heaven.

Everything but the time of day is the same: the cars in the

street, the kid's crestfallen expression, the red balloon

disappearing into the gray sky.

Sam runs across the street and confronts Piano Mover 1.

SAM:

You were here on Thursday. You were

moving this piano on Thursday, too.

The man is engaged in the difficult business of hoisting a

piano into a fourth-floor apartment and doesn't have time for

this kind of banter.

He looks briefly at Sam and then back to the Bechstein.

PIANO MOVER 1

Can I help you with something, pal?

60.

SAM:

That kid with the balloon, the

exact same thing happened on

Thursday.

PIANO MOVER 1

We're a little busy here. Why don't

you go bother someone else?

Sam watches the workmen on the fourth floor ease the piano

into position.

INT. SAM'S APARTMENT -- MORNING

Sam staggers in the front door, exhausted. Lila comes out of

the bedroom. She stops in her tracks when she sees him, all

bandaged and battered, then hurries over to him.

LILA:

What happened to you?

Sam shakes his head. How can he possibly explain what has

happened to him? He limps toward the bedroom. Lila,

nonplussed, follows after him.

INT. SAM'S BEDROOM -- CONTINUOUS

LILA:

I was calling people all over the

city looking for you. I was about

to call the police.

Sam checks the clock: 8:12 a.m. He begins to undress, pulling

off his sweater.

LILA (CONT'D)

What's going on, Sam?

Sam sits on the edge of the bed, considering the question.

SAM:

I don't know.

LILA:

I don't know? You run out in the

middle of the night and don't come

back until eight in the morning, no

phone call, no explanation, looking

like someone tried to murder you?

Don't tell me I don't know.

61.

Sam lies down on the bed, his clothes half-removed. He's too

exhausted to have a real conversation, too bewildered by the

events of the last few hours, too numbed from the Percoset.

SAM:

You want a better answer, ask

someone else.

LILA:

Excuse me?

SAM:

Lila, I'm seeing things that don't

make any sense. Okay? I'm meeting

people that are supposed to be

dead,. Beth Levy's had a nervous

breakdown and this kid I'm supposed

to be treating knows what's going

to happen before it happens.

LILA:

You were at Beth Levy's all night?

Sam groans.

LILA (CONT'D)

You're losing me, Sam. I swear to

God, you're starting to lose me.

Sam grunts, already half-asleep.

LILA (CONT'D)

(heavy sarcasm)

I'm glad we had this conversation.

I think we really cleared the air

on some important issues.

(jangling the car keys)

I'm going to the library.

SAM'S FIRST DREAM

The screen goes black. And then bright white. The white

gradually resolves and we see that we're staring into the

glare of a small flashlight.

The flashlight disappears and Sam's face replaces it, Sam's

face looming large, staring directly into the camera.

SAM:

Can you hear me, Henry? Henry? I'm

a doctor, I'm going to help you.

Can you hear me?

62.

END OF SAM'S FIRST DREAM

Sam opens his eyes. He's lying on his bed, still half-

clothed. He looks at the clock. 3 p.m. He sits straight up.

He's running out of time.

INT. SAM'S APARTMENT -- AFTERNOON

Sam prepares to leave, after having showered and changed

clothes (though he still wears the sweater he always wears).

He looks at himself in the foyer mirror. His eyes are

haunted.

INT. HALLWAY -- AFTERNOON

Sam pushes the elevator button and waits. The door slides

open.

Henry stands there. He slept on the street and it shows. Sam

stumbles backward.

SAM:

Jesus Christ.

(beat)

What are you doing here? How did

you know where I live?

The doors start to slide shut and Sam gets into the elevator.

They descend.

SAM (CONT'D)

I've been looking all over for you.

I saw your mother last night.

Henry seems uninterested.

SAM (CONT'D)

You told me she was dead.

Henry stares at Sam, never blinking.

SAM (CONT'D)

Everyone seems to think your

mother's dead. But I was standing

in her kitchen talking to her.

Sam indicates the bandages on his neck.

SAM (CONT'D)

I met Olive.

63.

HENRY:

Olive's dead, too. We put her to

sleep when I was twelve. She had a

tumor in her liver.

SAM:

Olive's not dead. She is very much

not dead.

HENRY:

She was a good girl. She used to

kill the rabbits.

Sam grabs Henry and presses him against the wall of the

elevator.

SAM:

Quit playing with me.

HENRY:

(with mock surprise)

Doctor Foster!

SAM:

I want to know what's going on. How

do you know the future?

HENRY:

I make it up.

The door opens onto the seventh-floor. A MUSLIM WOMAN in full

veil looks into the elevator. Sam releases Henry. The woman

decides not to get in.

.

Everyone is silent until the doors slide shut again.

SAM:

Ever since I met you impossible

things have been happening. I'm

trying to help you but it feels

like I'm losing my mind.

(beat)

What happened to your parents?

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