(theme music playing)
NARRATOR: Man lives in the sunlit world
of what he believes to be reality.
But... there is,
unseen by most, an underworld.
A place that is just as real
but not as brightly lit.
A dark side.
¶ ¶
No, it's wrong.
I just can't do it.
Why the hell not?
Aren't you always the one complaining
you can't afford to buy new canvas anymore.
Yes, but...
Then just paint your gesso right over it
and you've got a perfectly good canvas.
Bad karma.
Listen, Kate,
my landlady practically paid me
to cart this junk away.
Whoever painted this stuff is long gone.
Trust me, nobody cares.
I do.
Listen, I may be broke,
but I've still got principles.
Well, a few.
A painting is a sacred object that lives forever--
I mean, living particles.
An energy vibration that never dies.
Cut the artsy fartsy, all right.
Look at it this way.
Now when I dance,
energy starts from inside and then out,
and then bang,
and it's finished.
And likewise with an artist, all right.
First energy and then bang!
It's over like a dance.
David, that is heavy.
I mean, really heavy. Fine.
I'll just take this all back.
You can do your precious little paintings
on cardboard and dirty sidewalks.
Let's just keep every little piece of the world
in its proper place forever.
Okay, okay, stop it.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
Now you think I'm crazy, right? Yes.
But that's why we're such good friends.
Well,
sometimes I am a nut.
But a beatific nut,
fresh from the Diamond Sutra.
Thank you.
You're a sweetheart.
You know, these really are awful.
Tell me.
You'd do a great service to world karma
by whitewashing this junk.
I think you're right
Bring on the gesso, quick.
(teakettle whistling)
What do you want?
Ginseng? As usual.
Don't suppose you have anything
with any caffeine in it?
You know, this is really weird.
I could've sworn I put the gesso under the sink.
Space cadet!
Ha ha.
Oh, you know,
maybe you should try a little Eastern flower petal.
It might mellow you out.
Kate dear. Hmm?
You're just an unrepentant, health food, flower child.
I must've left that gesso upstairs.
You hope.
I smell gas.
This damn old stove.
When are you gonna get this thing fixed?
KATE: I like it the way it is.
It's got character.
You mean you're too cheap to fix it.
Mean I'm too poor.
Tea's ready.
I'll be down in a moment.
(siren wailing)
Hey, Kate,
that ambulance is pulling up right across the street.
You got any neighbors with bad tickers?
Not that I know of.
A couple of pretty intense characters getting out.
(vehicle door slams)
Hey, that's weird.
They're coming up here.
(doorbell ringing)
Glenville paramedics.
Where's the victim?
Excuse me?
The woman who fell down the stairs.
Are you sure you got the right house?
This is 812 Waterton Street? Yeah.
(crash)
Get an air splint and a neck brace.
(groans)
David?
Kate.
You know you really didn't have to hurt yourself on our account.
What a bummer, huh?
Bad karma.
(groans) Where to, my lady?
Over there, the big chair.
Here, David.
I'll take this upstairs
and empty out the dirty clothes. Oh, thanks.
Oh, Janet, could you bring me the sketch pad
from upstairs?
(groaning)
Okay.
Oh, I need that thing, too.
Okay.
(groans)
Look, I hate to abandon you with your sister,
but, uh, I got students coming in.
Would you stop apologizing?
I understand.
Thank you for being such a terrific chauffer.
Go on now. Okay.
Listen, I'll come back later
if you need anything-- groceries--
I'll pick it up. Okay? Okay.
Bye. I'll be here.
(door opens, then shuts)
Well, no wonder you fell--
the shape these stairs are in,
and this railing is loose.
Boy, you really ought to put some money in this house, Kate.
Let's not start that one again, okay?
There's no reason
why you couldn't get a regular job.
I could help you find one.
In-in graphic design or maybe advertising.
Doing what?
Uh, lettering signs for crooked car salesmen.
I mean, that's not my style.
You know that. No.
Your style is "Oh, just do what you want."
Well, I've got to be getting to work
in, ooh, a few minutes.
Now, what else can I get you before I leave?
Jan?
Yeah?
I've been thinking about the way the ambulance arrived
just before my accident.
You know, in like the synchronicity
of cause and effect.
I mean, it's such a trip.
Like, I mean, why did I break my leg?
Because the ambulance was here
or did I break it somehow some other time,
like in another lifetime
and somehow the ambulance knew.
Kate, please.
Stop.
But doesn't it seem strange?
I mean, it's almost as if the accident had to happen
because they were already here.
(sighs)
Only to you, Kate.
Only to you.
(paint splashing) Oh, damn it!
(glass shattering) Double damn it!
(doorbell ringing)
It is rude to laugh.
(electrical frizzing)
(grunts)
(ringing continues)
All right, all right.
This better be important.
Okay.
(ringing continues)
(electrical frizzing)
(ringing stops)
I think there's a short circuit in the bell.
Uh, what can I do for you?
Hi, yeah, I got your order here. My order?
I didn't order anything.
Uh, Kate Collins, right?
812 Waterton?
Do you know who called that order in?
Was it my sister or...
Ms. Collins, I really wouldn't know.
Mr. Bates says deliver, I say, "Yes, sir."
Okay, well,
come on in we'll straighten it out.
I don't really need anything
because I just went shopping
the day before I got hurt.
So, let's see.
Uh, my sprouts are fresh.
Oh, bummer.
Got the list right here.
It sounds like one of yours.
All right, uh, no-salt margarine,
low-fat yogurt,
skim milk, applesauce.
It sounds like one of my orders.
But see, I'm not out of it... Goat cheese,
fresh ground peanut butter.
MAN: Oh, I'm sorry, what'd you say?
Go-go on.
What else? Uh,
vermicelli... Wait a sec.
KATE: Okay.
MAN: Cornflakes, uh, rice noodles,
herb tea,
diet sweetener.
Far out!
Do-do you want me to take it back or what?
No, I'll, I'll keep it.
Put it down.
I guess it was meant for me after all.
(door opens, then shuts)
KATE: Pop! Pop!
Just like-like bubbles in the air.
Pop! Pop!
Look, Kate, I really have got to be getting back to work.
You're not listening to me. Oh, Kate.
You know how you are
when you're concentrating on your art.
I was painting over old canvases.
That hardly requires a creative trance.
I saw the groceries disappear.
Well, it was as if they were trying
not to make a liar out of the delivery boy.
Well,
you used to do LSD in college, didn't you?
Sure. So did everyone. So what?
Well, so doesn't that stuff stay in the fat cells
or something for years and years.
I know what a flashback feels like.
This wasn't one. Yeah, but with the new drugs
that you're on now, I mean,
there could be drug interaction.
You don't believe me.
Not unless I saw it myself.
Maybe not, then.
You're such a die-hard skeptic.
Well, maybe it's because you're such a gullible mystic.
I mean, who was it who used to do astrological charts
on her boyfriends?
And then it was the tarot cards and then the I Ching.
You never tried to understand.
When are you gonna stop thinking like a child?
You have gone headlong
into one bit of nonsense after another
for as long as I can remember.
I don't believe I gave up a lunch date with a marketing director
to come over here for this! You know what?
I feel sorry for you.
You are so narrow
and so straight that you're never going to see
any other reality but your own little world.
That's it.
What a bummer.
(dog barking in distance)
All right. Now, watch closely.
Did I miss something or are you practicing for Atlantic City?
Damn!
I was afraid of that. You're blocking me.
Look, what you've got to do is
just get rid of all the "shoulds" and "ought tos"
that are cluttering up your brain, okay?
Just kind of let things take their own shape.
Understand?
Uh, not really.
I don't either, exactly.
But let's try.
You know what that card is?
No, but neither do you, unless you're cheating.
Well, it could be anything, right?
I mean, it doesn't even have to be a regular deck.
Hey, man, listen.
This could be a card from a Chinese deck or a kids' game.
Right?
Pick a card. But...
I don't want you to expect to see any card
that you have ever seen, ever.
Seven of clocks?
(laughing) Right on. I told you.
That's it. Don't you see? That's it.
Okay.
Pick another one.
King of frog?
Wait, let me see these.
(laughing): What? What?
You switched these on me.
No, I think you switched them.
You're good.
You're real good. I didn't know you knew card tricks.
I don't.
Even if I did,
that wouldn't explain why your keys are gone.
That's amazing.
I didn't even hear a jingle. Bring them back.
I can't. I don't know where they are.
Then what...
That-that's what I've been talking about, David.
Things just disappear.
Don't you understand?
No, all I understand is that I put my keys down,
I turned my head, and now I don't have any transportation.
We are into something really big here.
Little objects do it all the time.
Some more than others.
I've been experimenting all afternoon.
Uh, wallets are terrific.
The backs of earrings.
Car keys.
Right on.
You know, I think it's because little objects
aren't held here as strongly as others.
Maybe it's because
there's only one person involved.
I mean, it's like this house, say, okay?
Now, this house is held here by me, by the neighbors,
by... by everybody who's ever lived here,
by the people who drive by every day.
It's not going anywhere.
Kate, Kate, this is absolutely incredible.
You can change reality.
I mean, if you can somehow bottle this,
I'll never have to teach another dance class,
and you'll never have to paint on a secondhand canvas
again in your life, Kate.
You're not listening to me.
It's not about doing something.
It's about not doing anything.
It's about kind of allowing it to happen.
KATE: See?
See? There. It was getting dark.
David, how can you make something random happen?
I mean, if you make it happen, then it's not random.
Then tell me what works.
What are the rules?
I think the secret is that there aren't any rules.
What if the universe isn't as orderly
as we'd like to think it is?
What if it's really random and chaotic?
What if we force order into the chaos,
collectively and individually?
Then we are the ones that hold reality in place.
But we can't change the basic nature of things.
Which means that random things are happening constantly.
I mean, it's like reality's being zapped all the time.
Zapped.
That's really heavy.
And-and some zaps are so tiny that we don't even notice them
and others are so big that they change everything,
only we change reality, so it doesn't seem
like anything strange ever happened.
But now we can see it happen.
Oh, God. My next class is in ten minutes.
And my keys are who knows where.
You'd better hurry. Tell me.
I think you can still catch the number four.
David!
Look!
(humming)
No freelancing. That's enough of that.
(clattering)
You, too, huh?
Can't even do your job without me watching.
That would be inconvenient.
Getting the water started.
(exploding)
(screaming)
Stop it! Stop it! Stop it right now!
You hear me?
(screaming)
My God!
(line ringing) Come on, David.
Pick up your phone.
Come on. Come on, David, please be home.
Please.
(sighing)
All right. Maybe he stayed late.
Late at the studio.
I've got that number.
Uh, where do I have the number?
Um...
Uh... Oh...
Okay.
(mumbling)
(phone rings)
David? JANET: No, it's me, Janet.
Oh, Janet. Oh, thank God.
Listen, Janet, please, could you come over here right now?
The whole house is zapping out all around me.
I can't handle it, man.
What do you mean, zapping?
It's just disappearing.
It's gone too far.
I'm meeting Warren for drinks in 15 minutes.
I don't have time to come by.
Janet, please, just for once in your life, would you believe me?
Kate, now, stop this.
I can't be babysitting you through every little crisis.
Janet, I am terrified.
The house is disappearing around me.
Listen to me, Kate.
Nothing is going to happen, okay?
Everything is under control.
I'll come by later after my date and, uh,
we'll talk this all out, okay?
I don't think so. JANET: Kate, look...
I'm sorry, but I'm late and I got to go.
Don't worry.
(dial tone droning)
(replaces receiver)
Oh, Janet.
Janet, you did it.
You didn't even have to be here and you did it.
Oh, bless you.
(gasping)
(phone rings)
Oh, my God.
(whimpers)
(phone ringing)
(Kate grunting, ringing continues)
Janet?
WOMAN (on recording): We're sorry. You have reached a number...
David?
...disconnected or is no longer in service.
Please check the number or dial again.
This is a recorded message.
We're sorry. You have reached a number
that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.
(high-pitched screaming)
(siren wailing)
(gasping)
(garbled police radio transmission) KATE: No, go away!
Go away! It's not fair!
(hissing)
(bell rings)
Not the gas.
Please, God, not the gas.
(doorbell ringing, sizzling)
(screaming)
(explosion booming)
NARRATOR: The dark side is always there.
Waiting for us to enter.
Waiting to enter us.
Until next time,
try to enjoy the daylight.