"From birth, we hit the ground running." "Put one foot in front of the other and anything's possible." "That's all bullshit." "The truth is from evolution to revolution, things hardly ever change gradually." "They change suddenly in great leaps." "For those who understand this, life is a constant search for the next big jump." "For the rest of us, all that jumping seems kinda stupid." "Are you mad at me?" " Beside myself." " Give it to me." "Both barrels." "You don't mess with fate, peanut." "There's no discussions." "Life's done, it's done." " I know that." " You of all people should know that." "I have to go to work." " Wanna talk?" " I don't wanna talk." " Have some French fries." " They're cold." "I gotta go." "That's when it occurred to me." "I really didn't have any friends." "I just had co-workers." "And I really wanted a friend." "As a young undead woman out on my own in the world, where would I find that friend?" "Maybe at my day job." "Maybe at Happy Time." "Maybe Delores wasn't just my co-worker." "Maybe she could be my friend." "Hi!" "How's the little engine that could?" "Or not." " I'm almost finished." " Wonderful." "The embossed binders are in a white box by my desk." "We'll do the cover page last." "Gayle's making changes." " Did you know she's colour-blind?" " No." " That's unusual for girls." " Really?" "Sure." "My sister's colour-blind." "Everyone made such a fuss because it's so rare." "But she's a little masculine so we weren't surprised." "Has a wispy little moustache." "She sounds pretty." "Do you have a sister, Millie?" "I know George has a sister." "Had a sister." "But does Millie?" " I didn't mean to stump you." " I pulled something outta my ass." "I have an older brother." "His name is Luke." "He's a jet pilot." "He bombed the crap out of Baghdad." " A jet pilot?" " And in that instant I invented Millie." " I had no idea." " Neither did I." "OK, back to work." "We'll have to save this for a latte one of these mornings." "Millie." "Have you ever kept a scrapbook?" "Uh..." "No." " You all know Millie?" " Hi, Millie." " Hi, Millie." " Hi." "She's getting her feet wet with the whole Excel system." " We all know how that can be." " Are you going on the Excel retreat?" "I'm keeping my fingers crossed." "Am I going?" "No." "We've had a bad experience with one of the tutorial staff." "What was her name?" "Diane something?" " Farber..." "Farmer." "Wilson!" " I've blocked it out." "She was a big C U Next Tuesday." "Gayle." "I think she was just in an unhappy place." "Anyway, so welcome to our little scrapbook circle." "The lengths I go to for free food." "You wanna make sure and use acid-free stickers, especially on your friendship pages." "That's good to know." "This is my work-related scrapbook." "My first pay stub." "And the sparkling cider label from Harry V's cake lunch." "This is my work-related scrapbook." "These are bone fragments I found next to an exploded high-voltage transformer." "And this is from that nuclear-reactor incident." "I think it's a testicle." "I recommend not skimping on border paper." "Will you start a scrapbook?" "I could have tried to see the thrill in cataloguing artefacts and laminating memories, but that wouldn't be me." "I would, but I'm having one of those heavy-flow days." " Red is my favourite." " Could Betty be a friend?" "You're talking about the wax, not the cheese?" "Half the fun is taking the wax off the cheese." "It's kind of like taking off a man's clothes." " I wouldn't know." " Oh, so much fun." "You're beautiful." "You do know that?" " Definitely a friend." " It's true." "OK." "I like your ring." "I saw it in the village in 19277." "My boy bought it for me." "Wow." "No guy's ever bought me anything." " Isn't she beautiful?" " Are you prostitutes?" " No." " Then why are you talking to me?" "You've got a worldly quality, a certainje ne sais quoi." " Say what?" " You're Chuck, right?" " What kind of car do you drive?" " Convertible." "We used to call them breezers." "Isn't that cute?" " Is it a red convertible?" " Yeah." "I thought you might." "I don't get it." "Who are you?" "Somehow he'd convinced himself we were a pair of black widows out to mate and kill." "He should have been worrying about the nest of poisonous spiders in his closet." " I forgot to tell you." "I found out who Millie is." " Oh, yeah?" "Hello?" "How come I can't get a glass of water?" " Because you're history." " Millie has an older brother, Luke." " He's a jet pilot." "He's cool." " Are you close?" "Yeah." "At least, I think I am." " Does he drive a breezer?" " Absolutely." "He's a jet pilot." " He loves speed." " Mmm, sounds hot." " What car does Millie drive?" " She doesn't have a car." "She hitches." "Looks like someone fell over in the street." "Honey, that's you." "Betty got excited about the littlest things." "Being undead made her more alive than any living person I know." "But nothing surprised her." " How's the water?" " Chilly." "It woke me right up." "He's not interested in taking the leap." "Terrible when a man's lily-livered, isn't it?" "So unattractive." " That's a little high." " Bigger splash from up there." "Is that a fact?" "Aren't you a friend of the frotteurist at the picnic rubbing himself on people?" " I met him at the dessert table." " I didn't see a dessert table." "Then get your peepers checked." "He cupped my buttocks reaching for the blueberry buckle." " Probably figured that I didn't notice." " He calls that soul popping." "I think you should keep better company." " I apologise on his behalf." " That's sweet." "But he should take responsibility for his actions." " Couldn't agree more." " Then I expect a formal apology." " March your friend down here." " He's already gone." " Where'd he go?" " Got a promotion, I guess." "He's gone." "If it's any comfort at all, yours was the last tush he'll grab." " Where are you headed?" " I'm going again." " You like falling?" " Not the falling." "It's the jumping." "It'd be better if it weren't for the falling." "Falling's easy." "You just fall." "Jumping requires strength of will." " Not on a plank." " That isn't your choice." "If it is, it's the best feeling in the world." " And you don't care where you land?" " Like falling, you just land." " You're a force of nature." " Try jumping." "It's the greatest feeling in the world." "Oh, no." "She's wearing my bathing suit." "And that's how Betty learned sometimes jumping is your last feeling in the world." "I miss Chuck." "Why do you take people's Polaroids right before you pop their souls?" "I was looking for a signature, to get away from the cloak and sickle thing." "I've got a sack of convertible people." " A whole sack?" " I've got lots of sacks." " Helps me keep track." " Really?" "Everyone in their place." " What sack are you in?" " I'm a jumper." "No sack can hold me." "OK." "Happy thoughts." "My face gets sore if I smile too much." "Do it anyway." "Maybe Betty was right." "Maybe there is a place for everything." "Maybe everything is in its place." "But what if you've seen all the places and everything's already in its place and you still can't sit still?" "This one is for the little, hard, reusable ones that look like a nipple." "This one frequency-wipes those electronic jobbies inside the packages." " Going shopping?" " She is." "Do you want me to pick you up a V-neck?" "I'm OK." "But you see something that screams me, pick it up." " Heard about the big dust cloud?" " What dust cloud?" "Five miles wide, two miles high." "Boating over China, wiping out everything in its path." "The dust is so thick it's blocking out the sun, taking paint off of cars and flesh off of cows." "Flesh off cows." "Thousands of little yellow people keeling over in the streets." " Little yellow people?" " You been talking to Gary?" "Yeah." "What'd I tell you about talking to Gary?" " He's full of shit." " No dust cloud." "No dead yellow people." "Maybe not." "Too bad." "Trip to the Orient would've been nice." "I love dim sum." "I've been to Bali." "Three volcanoes, one typhoon." "Incredible devastation." "Beautiful black-sand beaches." "Do I ever get to go anywhere?" "I'll take you to Pamplona." "Work those early-morning bull runs." "I could do that, except do they have late-morning or early-afternoon bull runs?" "We usually take the soul in the AM." "Rest of the day is sangria and sunshine." "The dead are very laid-back in Spain." "It's a nice gig." "Do we ever take non-working vacations, you know, where no one dies?" " Everyone throw in." "Except you." " He ate my fruit." "Not just the cantaloupe." "The strawberries too." "Well, you did." "Actually, about a dollar's worth." "You want me to give you a dollar?" "That's why I said you ate a whole dollar's worth." "Rube, how am I meant to get all the way out to East Bumblefuck?" " You got a bus pass." " You could tell me the right line." "Get a schedule." "I could use a ride home." "You got two good legs, peanut." "Use 'em." "I'll take you." "She's just a kid." "Do you have to be such an asshole?" "Come on." "Hm?" "No, never heard of it." "I'm sorry." "Recorded in '33." "Or '34." "I can't recall." "Practically a national anthem." "No more tea for you." " Why'd you pour me a cup?" " I didn't." "I poured me a cup." " Where's your sugar?" " Sugar's in the sugar bowl." "That's my cup." "I'm the only one drinks out of that cup." "Rinse it out and put it back where you found it." "It's not like you can use it any more." "I got other cups for guests." "I also sang with Les Brown and his Band of Renown." "You can have that cup." "I hate that cat." "If I had a cat like that, I'd sell it to a Vietnamese restaurant." " You know Les Brown?" " No." "Les told me I could do anything on that stage as long as I was singing." "Such a kind heart." "Except when he was working with Red Nichols." "But Red could be a real cocksucker, especially when he was parading around with his ass in the air like a baboon presenting." "I never had time for him." "Are these valuable?" " I painted those." " Pity." "I buried three dogs in those woods." "Coyotes dug up the first two." " Hi." " Hi." "How do you know who goes where?" "I look at the picture and then a light bulb goes off in my stomach." " Gut reaction?" " Bingo." "Do you know what people are in what sack?" " Of course I do." "I put them there." " God, you're like my mother." " Millie's or yours?" " Mine." "Ooh." "But Millie has a brother." "A race-car driver, a jet pilot." " He is." "He almost won the Indy 500." " Ooh." " Do you have any brothers or sisters?" " Mm-mm." "Just cousins." "What about your other identities or whatever you call it?" "Like Theresa?" "Theresa and Sandy." "All my alter egos were only children." "It's just easier to remember that way." " You were a Sandy?" " I loved being Sandy." " She was a pistol." " How many girls have you been?" "Three." "No, four." "Maxine, Candice, Sandy and Theresa." "Every few decades you gotta shake things up a bit or folks get suspicious." "Don't you ever wanna shake things up?" "I feel pretty shaken up most of the time anyway." " Do you want me to call anybody?" " And say what?" " I could report a strange smell." " If anyone cared, they'd come look." "I don't feel the need to make it easy for 'em." "Good." "Neither do I." "What you could do is leave the back door open and let the coyotes eat me." "That'd make 'em think." " I'd feel shit if coyotes ate my mum." " Damn right." "'Cause you're a good boy." "Oh, my God." "My dad used to listen to Louis Prima." "I worked with Louis." "It was at Frank Delaney's Terrace Room." " That's in Newark." "Ever been?" " Can't say I have." "It's a toilet." "But Louis had such a distinctive voice." "Rub you all wrong and it'd rub you all right." "He was something else." " Is this collectable?" " I was raised on that washing powder." "Those are the Gold Dust twins." "Aren't they just the cutest little jigaboos?" "Aren't you quite the racist!" "I even named a couple of dogs after 'em." "They're the ones the coyotes dug up." "You got lots of money anywhere?" " Sit down." " OK." "Close your eyes." "All right." "What people?" "What sack?" "Reiterator people." "They're inauthentic." "They have no idea who they are." "They steal people's thoughts, convinced they said it first." "Almost all of them have really greasy hair." "Why can't people be more different?" "There's a finite number of personalities and I have met them all." "Why did you bring all these sacks over?" "To illustrate my point." " Which is what?" " People are not snowflakes." "And I needed to clear out some room in my closet." "You don't mind, do you?" "I'd like to think Betty was wrong." "People couldn't be clumped together in sacks and shoeboxes." "But after spending time at work, I started to think maybe they could." "Maybe people weren't that different from one another." "Hi, Millie." "Working hard or hardly working?" "Sacks and shoeboxes might not be such a bad idea." "For everything you love or hate, there are hundreds and thousands of people who love or hate the same thing." "I'm a cat person, Millie." "Let me show you a picture of Murray." "He's 15 years old." "His bladder's going." "Poor thing pissed on the drapes yesterday." "I just love him." "Meow!" "Meow!" "That's why God made support groups." "But there's no support group for everything." "I hate her!" "What a bitch!" "Who does she think she is?" "It's hard enough without somebody riding my ass every second of every goddamn day!" "No cure, no quick fix." "One way or another, you find your sack, crawl inside..." "Amber just got a wax." "Five bucks says she'll show Raoul by the end of business." ".. and make the most of it." "You're on." "You're pushing too hard." "Just the one stroke on the F." "You lifted the goddamn pen." "And that N, it looks like an M. There's no M in Florence." "No wonder your children don't visit you." "You want my Social Security cheques or not?" "Why is it taking so long?" "I don't know." "Maybe there's a few synapses in there still firing." "Am I cold?" "Go check and see if I'm cold." "No, you're not really cold." "You're not warm either." "Kind of like a room temperature, like a soft Brie." "Hey." "You'll know when it happens." "It gets bright." "You see something nice." "What do you mean, something nice?" "Come on." "Well, you see something nice that you wanna see." "It's all about you and what you want." " What'd you see when you died?" " I'm not officially dead." "I didn't cross over, so I didn't get a big light show, you know." "It doesn't mean I don't have to watch everybody else's." "And they're not always pretty, believe me." "One bloke climbed right back inside his mother before my very eyes." "Jesus Christ, fella!" "Cut the..." "Jesus!" "As Mason was making friends, I was fending off co-workers." "Hi." "Michael and I were thinking of driving to the outlets at lunch." "I hear there's a stationery store you have to see to believe." " That sounds like fun." " You can come with." "I would, but I'm one month sober today, so my sponsor's taking me to the park to fly kites." "Oh." "I used to have a kite." "Shaped like a dragon." "I'll meet you in front of the elevators on P2." "I am... so proud of you." "I look at you... .. and my heart swells with such pride." "I act like I have it all together, but I am no stranger to adversity." "I went through a rough patch at your age." "It was the '80s and everyone was doing so much cocaine." "We called it blow." "I prayed for something, anything, to prevent more words coming out of Delores's mouth." "May I help you?" " Ready?" " Anything but this." "You're supposed to be downstairs." "Hi." "I'm Delores Herbig, as in her big brown eyes." "Nice to meet you and your big brown eyes." " Are you Millie's sponsor?" " Yes." "We're on our way to the park to fly kites." " You said that." " These communal?" "Think of them as a well-deserved reward." "It's wonderful to be a shepherd to a young person." "I myself am very happy to be Millie's shepherd from nine to five." " How's Millie working out for you?" " Wonderful." "She's very industrious." " Really?" " Absolutely." "Doesn't give you any lip, does what she's told or you gotta give her an occasional time-out?" " She's an angel." " This Millie here?" "She said I'm an angel." "Drop it." " That's great." " Can we go now?" "Do not touch your hair." "Promise me you won't touch your hair." "Say, "I promise that I will not touch my hair."" " I promise." " Let's go." " Bye." " Bye." "Today's the day MJ Bowers is gonna die." "If you're in the market for a Bowers soul, this was the place to be." "Nice day for a reunion." "Had to do it today, rain or shine." "Bowers coming in from all over." " Is that a fact?" " Even all the way from Miami." "Yeah?" "Well, you should have held it there." " You're not a Bowers, are you?" " No." "Just by marriage." " This sucks." " You're not by yourself." "I had to work the Macy's thanksgiving parade alone one year." "There was this travesty with a rogue Marmaduke balloon." "Let's work the crowd." "Look for high-risk factors and try not to alarm anybody." "OK." "Betty always seems to go a different way than everyone else." "It was mysterious and reassuring." "I wonder if she had a sack for mysterious and reassuring." "I'd put her picture in it." "Age and wisdom had no impact on her." "Just that strange light bulb that lived in her stomach." "Knowing that made my afterlife a little more comfortable." "Sorry." "MJ?" "MJ?" "MJ?" "Any of you folks MJ Bowers?" " Come on!" " Do it!" "Do it!" "You got her, Lou!" "MJ, buddy?" "She's a pit bull?" "They're real unstable." "They go nuts and kill people all the time." "Has your dog ever done that?" " Is your name MJ?" " What?" "My friend tells me go say hello to MJ." "She points to you." " Which friend?" " Pretty girl in the pant suit." "That one?" "I don't know her." "What'd she point at me for?" " Are you MJ Bowers?" " Who wants to know?" "We're all family." "I'm just asking your name." " I don't know you, sir." " Rube." "Hi." "How are you?" "I'm tired of fucking around." "Are you MJ Bowers or not?" "George!" "MJ." "You remember MJ?" "Hey." "That's not MJ." "I've got MJ." "Marvin James is stuck in the tube slide." "All the other children are piling in." "They're packed in like sausage meat." "There's a subtle distinction between an MJ Bowers and the MJ Bowers." "Comfortable and safe or mysterious and reassuring?" "It didn't matter either way, 'cause time was up." "Happy thoughts!" "Slow down!" "You stupid son of a bitch!" "I didn't see that one coming." "Then again, neither did he." "Either way, MJ Bowers ended up in a sack." "But Betty had a way with the dead." "A deadside manner, I guess." "The glass doesn't have to be half-empty." "Know how much reconstructive surgery you'd have if you'd survived?" "Lots." "Lots and lots." "Sure, it'd be worth it if you were still alive, but since you're not, it's just one less thing to worry about." "Aren't you supposed to help me send a message to my loved ones?" "I don't see Della Reese sitting at this table." "Look, you seem like a very nice man, but you can't expect us to drop a card in the mail every time somebody dies." " Why not?" " Postage." "It adds up." " This was my life?" " We don't get paid." " This is a public service." " Really?" "Yeah." "Stupid, huh?" "We should get paid, at least minimum wage." " Look who's Norma Rae." " My sister lives around the corner." " Write something on a napkin." " You don't wanna mess with her head." "People can't get notes from their dearly departed." "She'll go insane." "This goes double for you." "Tell her it's a note from Jesus, and Jesus says I'm OK." "Fine." "Jesus'll leave a note." "If he can walk on water, I guess he can write a note." "The curtain was coming down all over town." "And a dirge would play." "If this is Murray the dead cat, I'm so outta here." "Pay day." "And to celebrate your very first Happy Time pay cheque, Pay Day." "Get it?" "Allow me to pass on a helpful hint - that Pay Day label makes a great title page for your work scrapbook." " I'll keep that in mind." " Where's it going?" "Some new slingbacks?" "A blazer for work?" "This is usually where I start counting Delores's eyebrow hairs." "But then..." "I was thinking about a terrarium." "I have a frog with no place to live." "I started talking to her, and I wasn't just bullshitting." "I kind of didn't want her to leave." "I like to sock away 10% of every pay cheque." "Put the money someplace whimsical." "A brightly coloured cigar box is what works for me." " I call it my fun fund." " Fun fund?" "I go wild every once in a while, buy something frivolous, just for me." "It used to be the..." "Last month I bought the most adorable ashtray and I don't even smoke." "How's your cat?" "How's Murray?" "Oh, thank you for asking." "His bladder's not good." "Cashed in my first pay cheque today." "Bought a terrarium for my frog." " You got a frog?" " He followed me from the train wreck." "That's a lot of jumping." "I like jumping..." " Maybe you're frog people." " Maybe." "Or maybe I just can't sit still for too long." "In retrospect, that's the moment she decided to do it." "On the bar with you!" "I would like to thank you all for coming to my... birthday." "Some of you are beloved co-workers." "Some of you are lifelong friends." "But to me, you're all family." "I love you all, especially you, Maggie." "If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be where I am today." "On top of a bar getting piss drunk!" "But, but, but... as much as I love you all, this day is not about you." "It's about me." "It's about what I want to do." "And you all know what I want to do." "Excuse me." "Have we met before?" "I think we might have a long, long time ago." "Happy thoughts." "Oh, no." "I know you were having fun in there." "Sorry you couldn't stay." "It might have been short, but I can't argue with the time I did have." " The cliffs of Dover." " Best thing about cliffs is jumping." "I'm not much for jumping." "I'm not much for landing either." "You don't have to worry about where you land." "Leap of faith?" "If you've been putting off a jump, just putting it off, sometimes the subtle things are what make you take the plunge." " Here." "Take my picture." " What?" " Take my picture." " Why?" "Happy thoughts." "For my beautiful young friend." "I love you, sweetie." " What are you doing?" " Trying to shake things up." " Piggyback ride." " We can't go where they're going!" "Open door's an invitation." "Gotta jump while the door's open!" "And just like that, she was gone." "We lead our lives, and when they end, sometimes we leave a little of ourselves behind." "Sometimes we leave money, a painting." "Sometimes we leave a kind word." "Jesus?" "And sometimes we leave an empty space." "Can't go where she went." "I know." "She was a pistol." "I don't understand." "Where did she go?" "She's coming back, right?" " I don't know." " God, I hate this." "Betty told me that Millie had an older brother." "No." "She had an older sister." "And she was fearless." "Yeah." "She was a real pistol." "Why do I keep losing all the things and people that I care about?" "That's what life is, peanut." "How does death deal with death?" "The same way the living do." "Trying to make sense of something that'll never quite make sense." "Don't be bashful." "I was a beginner once too." "Mysterious and reassuring." "Uh-huh." "All these people, they all have it." "Around their eyes, in their smile." "The reassuring part is... .. what lulls you into the sense that everything's gonna be fine and then, boom, they pull the rug out from underneath you." "That's the mystery part." "I'm gonna stop you right here." "Common rookie move in scrapbooking." "Turning them into photo albums." "The first thing they teach you about scrapbooks, rule number one, is that they are not photo albums." "Scrapbooking is an art form..." "When you can't make sense of someone leaving, you sometimes try to make sense of what they left behind." "And it makes it a whole lot easier when what they left you was beautiful."