"I remember once learning that the average human head weighs 20 pounds." "I know a lot of that is skull, flesh, and hair, if you've got hair, but that still leaves a couple of pounds for pure gray matter." "And that means tons of tiny neurons are firing away sending little signals to each other like" ""I love to do the salsa."" "Or testing other neurons with questions like" ""Why am I only having sex with myself?"" "And while we work hard making our brains work for us, a little war is quietly underway." "Half of these brain cells up there are telling the other half to chill." "Too many firings at once and we'd be having siezures day and night." "I wasn't about to take that risk." "This is Fiona." "She's going to be joining us part-time." "Helping us get a handle on that mess in data input." "Welcome aboard, Fiona." "Thanks." "I was hoping you could be Fiona's Mentor, get her up to speed." " Mentor ?" " Mentor." "Mentor - a promotion without a pay raise." "Basically all you have to do is peel off these edges so they fit neatly in the box." "And once you fill the boxes, they're to be filed away never to be seen again, unless people start to eat paper." "No ones ever gonna come look at these?" "They don't even bother to label the boxes." "At 12:30 you get a 35 minute lunch 'hour'." "Don't even ask." "Does anyone ever come in here?" "Not a lot, why?" "Just feels like a good place to do stuff." "Okay, like what?" "Stuff I like to do." " Do you have any tatoos?" " No." " Do you?" " Oh yeah." "Yeah." "What are they?" "Flowers." "They're all flowers." "Uh, Fiona, I don't need to see flowers just this second." "Cool." "I'm gonna be in this storage room all the fucking time." "Fiona, I've been at "Happy Time" a long time, and if I'm going to be your Mentor, then I'm just saying, you know, you can really benefit from my experience." "What are you doing?" "I'm stealing pens." " Well, the really good ones are up there." " Cool." "So when you think about it, half your brain is up there telling you not to do stuff, and for the first 18 years of my life, I listened... and then I died." "Truth is, when you finally do eat it, or bite it or get hit by a flaming toilet seat, it's not the big stuff you regret, you know, the "live your dreams" crap." "Near as I can tell, it's the small stuff, like not reaching out to those who needed you the most." "Imagine yourself journeying through a world that is deranged, empty and devoid of anchors to reality." "That is the daily struggle for those suffering schizophrenia." "Hi, I'm Ronnie Dobbs." "I'm a Capricorn." "I really like long walks in the rain and stuff." "That's your boy." "I've seen them, I've spotted them, I've made contact..." "A struggle where they can no longer distinguish what is real from what is unreal." "I might be late." "He's not quite right, is he?" "See." "That's for you, I got to go in here." "Well this one's mine over here." "Oh well." "Come on!" "Occupation hazard, no?" "As far as I can tell, this ones gonna fall on that one, blah, blah, blah." " Yeah?" " Yeah." "It sucks." " George, wait." " I have to go after him." "Rube wants to see you." "Tell him I'm busy." "He said now." "What do you mean, "clerical error?"" "What can I tell you, peanut, they had the date wrong." "So this guy, Ronnie Dobbs, is not supposed to die?" "No, he's supposed to die." "Just not today." "See anything you like?" "No." "I've never owned a used car." "I just don't see myself starting now." "My first car was an 1898 'Systeme Panhard'." "It's actually a little more buggy than car." "But it had beautiful lines." "Actually, it was a little jarring on my nuts." "Used cars are for... well they're for other kinds of people." "Is there a problem, princess?" "This is not small-curd cottage cheese." " It's large-curd." " And ?" "And it's just too much curd." "I can't eat it, and I won't." "What is wrong with you?" "There's nothing wrong with me." "I like things the way I like them and I despise big fat globules of cottage cheese." "Does that make me strange?" "A little bit." "This Ronnie guy gives me the creeps." "He looked at me as if he knew what I was up to." "He gave me this weird look." "The guy's a schizophrenic, all he has is weird." "You know what?" "I don't think I've ever been in a used car." "One for you, and one for you." "I don't think I've ever used anything used." "Mind if I look?" "Congratulations." "I have slept with married men." "Oh yeah?" "How many?" "Can I go watch the window washer fall to his death?" "Sure." "Oh, can I come?" "Ronnie, you cannot go off your meds again," "I'm your psychiatrist, I have responsibilities here, okay?" "Ronnie, are you listening to me?" "Yeah." "I'll tell you what." "Why don't you let me be the one voice in your head that you actually listen to, alright?" "And since you've proven to me that you can't be trusted, you're going to be tested twice a week." "It's just urine tests." "It's weird how they always fall butter-side down." "Come one, man." "That's what I get for coming to work wasted." "Do you mean drunk?" "I just got a sweet beer-bong for my birthday, man." "Now that I'm dead, can I still get high?" " Well, have you got some?" " Yeah." " Hey." " Hey." "Sorry for sticking you with that job." "If you need any help" "No thanks, it's done." " Really ?" " Yeah." "Thanks for all your guidance." "Here, have a pen." "That's when I realized my favorite trainee was laying down on the job." "I had been a caring and compassionate Mentor and she threw it back in my face." "Um, I checked the boxes." "You can't just stuff the paper in like that." "The job was to remove the perforated edges." "How can you be mad?" "Because you're not doing your job." "But you said it was all bullshit." "So ?" "So, I believed you." "You seemed to know what you were doing." "I wasn't disappointed." "In fact, I was kind of proud of myself." "I convinced her, like me, not to care." "I, George Lass, could be a role model." "Are you reporting me?" "No, Fiona, I don't think I will." "And with that epiphany, long-ignored neurons went to work, igniting new connections and reconnecting old ones." "Like the memory, that when I was a kid, the tooth fairy never came to my house." "Sure I lost plenty of teeth and sure I stuck them under my pillow, expecting a cool reward like cash or candy..." "But my mom thought cash and candy were crass, so tooth after tooth was instead rewarded with a thoughtful note, meant to inspire." "This sucks !" "At the time I thought it was a total rip off." "Like I said, it's the little things you regret." "The next time I lost a tooth, it was still under my pillow in the morning." "And then my young brain started putting it all together." "No tooth fairy, no Easter Bunny, no Santa." "And I know my sister Reggie must have felt the same." "Time to embrace the glory and be free." "Hey." "Hey." "I love the park." "Especially all the beautiful things you find in it." "In case I haven't been clear," "I'm undead, not dead-dead all those biological urges still apply." "I think I've seen you around." "I'm Ronnie." "I'm just sitting here, you know, as in not talking to anyone." "I thought you were sitting here because I was sitting here." "Okay, another regret is that I never learned to flirt." "I guess it had something to do with the fear of rejection." "Fortunately, fear's grip loosens when you're already dead." "I'm sorry, that was rude, I'm George." "What do you do, George?" "Office work, you?" "I talk to pretty girls named George." "That was lame." "I'm sorry, I'm trying to flirt with you, it's not really my thing." "And with that, we weirdly bonded." "The only thing standing in the way of even more bonding was that I may have been his grim reaper." "That I was as close as he's ever been to death." "You want some popcorn?" "No, that's okay." "You know what's crazy?" "Did you know that the human body has over two pounds of living bacteria in it?" "Not human cells, but foreign cells, okay?" "Like living creatures that set up entire communities inside our bodies." "We house them, uh, we feed them, we carry them around." "It's a pretty sweet deal for germs." "I'm not really a popcorn person." "I have to go do something right now." "He's gonna die... that guy over there." "Death's coming for him, you know it too, don't you?" "I admit he'd caught me off-guard." "So I played dumb." "I-I-I don't know...huh?" "Real, real dumb." "I got it." "You got sloppy." "He's seen you on the scene one too many times." "He knew the guy was gonna die." "You said the guy on the bike died." "Well, he knew someone was gonna die." "So you talked to him." "He talked to me." "I talked back." "A young fella?" "Young enough." "Sloppy." "What the hell was I supposed to do?" "Not be sloppy." "I know this is cliche to hate your boss but you're a real dickweed." "What you're feeling right now, the rage and frustration all knotted together, binding everything from your head to your digestive tracks?" "That's my life with you." "The guy talked to me." "What was I suppose to do?" "Steer clear of people, we're undead, peanut." "Undead are meant to exist on the fringe of the living world." "We're facilitators, not participants." "These are awful." "What I didn't tell Rube was that I should be good at this because I spent my life living on the fringe." "I was determined not to waste another." "She's strange, Clancy." "She's a strange 11-year-old." "She's just going through a difficult time." "She's been going through a difficult time for 11 years." "Yes, well, I don't think changing schools is the answer." "In fact, it'll only exacerbate things." "I spoke to Hank." "He said we could borrow against your pension." "We moved to this neighborhood because the have a great public school, and now you want to send Reggie to private." "It seems incredibly stupid." "So let's just pretend that we have a normal child." "Okay, so let's just pretend that going to a huge public school where she's already anonymous is going to cater to her needs, huh." "She lost her sister." "And she's lost." "She lives inside her head." "God know what's going on in there." "She's inscrutable." "What?" "Nothing." "I'm not disagreeing." "Yeah, well I'd rather you disagree, at least for once you'd be committing to something." "Let's talk to her." "See how she feels about changing schools." "It may not be what she wants to do." "She's 11." "How about we make the decisions for her, hmm?" "Act like the parents." "Hey, honey." "Your dad and I were just talking about you." "About the possibility of maybe, you know, changing schools." "Maybe going to St. Theresa's over on Hillhurst." "I want to ride a horse." "Doing my best to stay on the fringe..." "Looked like someone had fllowed me there." "Why are you stalking me?" "Why are you stalking me?" "I'm not." "What were you doing with that window washer the other day?" "I don't know what you're talking about." "Yeah, what I say to you right now, these are probably the last words I'll ever speak." "I was pretty confident it wasn't a pick-up line." "You saw what I saw climbing on that building." "It's death," "It's death, it's been following me around." "It's come to collect me." "I knew better." "I didn't have his post-it anymore and I sure didn't see any familiar faces lurking in the shadows." "It just likes to keep an eye on us." "It watches me all the time and I'm still here." "I love music." "Well, I like listening to it..." "World Pop, and French Club Scene." "I could burn you a really great CD, if you want." "Well, uh...how about you?" "What do you like listening to?" "Except for the fact that he was mentally ill and I was undead, it was starting to feel like a date." "I don't know." "Lots of stuff." " So, do you have a boyfriend?" " Not really..." "No." "That's so strange." "Why is it strange?" "I mean, it's just really cool." "I mean, when you think about it, it's pretty amazing, the two of us finding each other like this." "How many billions of people are there in the world and only the two of us can see death." "We share a gift." "You're not seeing death." "Well, whatever it is, it's a lot easier knowing that you can see it too." "Listen, I have a job," "I can't stay all night so..." "I can't sleep, so..." "I haven't slept in days." "I'm kind of self-unmedicating." "You're on medication?" "Was." "Voices." "Sometimes I see things that aren't really there." "So, uh, do you hear a lot of voices?" "No, just one." "I call him the Shepherd." "Does he tell you what to do?" "Well, he doesn't control me." "He spends most of his time yelling at me and making me feel stupid." "Hmm." "Maybe it's my mother." "):" "If I gave speed-racer, soap and a toothbrush, this place would shine by morning." "Nothing too gnarly, just something to help me sleep." "What no one tells you is that insomnia goes with the gig." "It's because we're forced to breathe in all that death." "Like working around Asbestos." "Oh, there you go." "Thank you." "One?" "Thank you." "One?" "Is one enough?" "No." "You've got that undead metabolism remember?" "Well, how many would a normal person have to take?" "Have you got a fellow in there?" "It says one." "Your perversions are coming into disturbing focus, Georgie, and just don't" "There's a thin line between crazy people and the rest of us." "I mean we all have voices in our heads." "Our parents are in there, our doubts, our fears, our desires... and just like crazy people, we all struggle to know which voice to listen to." "Maybe one trick to sorting it all out is being careful of which voices you let in the first place." "What are you doing?" "Oh, um, I didn't feel you up or anything, I was just looking." "I slept great." "Whatever you gave me was great." "But, I'm hungry." "Are you hungry?" "We could get some breakfast somewhere." "Do you like waffles?" "I'm kind of over waffles." "I've got to get to work." "Can I tag along?" "Um...it's work." "I was thinking about looking for hotel rooms today, going down to the "Four Seasons", something in a suite would be nice." "I think that's a great idea, Daisy." "I'm sure you do, Georgia." "Daisy, darling, if you need a place to crash you know you can" "Yeah, not in that life, not in this one, not ever, but thanks." "Okay." "Hi." "Um, how did I say I wanted my eggs?" "I think I said soft-poached." "These are obviously hard-poached, they're not runny at all, so I can't eat them, and I won't." "I think they'll come back runny." "I think you're right." "Because she's going to sneeze on them." "Okay, here we go, everyone, because I cannot get enough of your sweet, sweet company, we're going to have a little group job tomorrow." " St. Marcus ?" " Yeah, it's a wedding." "Oh good." "Does anyone else find this fucked up?" "Are you familiar with Charlie Chaplin, peanut?" "The silent movie guy?" "I once blew Charlie Chaplin." "Charlie Chaplin defined that thin line between comedy and tragedy." "Say you see some poor slob get hit in the head with a bucket of wet cement." "From 20 feet away that's funny as hell." "But you get too close, you get close enough to feel that pain and... and it's no longer funny." "Okay." "So it's like that with jobs like this." "You got to learn to step back like the rest of us have." "Far enough to see the funny in everything." "Well, I'll need a new outfit, you want to come shopping?" "Not really." "You need to blend in." "I have to get dressed up for this?" "Yeah.We get to see what you look like all gussied up." "We get to see what you look like all gussied up." "Do you know this guy?" "No." "Well, he definitely know one of us." "He's cute in that check-the-oil kind of way." "Excuse me." "I think he's sniffed out your boy, Georgie." "Her boy?" "Nice." "Yeah, Georgie girl has had him stashed away in her flat." "Good for you!" "You work with George?" "She told you that?" "She said she was going to work." "Does it look like we're working?" "No." "No, we just come here to talk." "We're sort of a group." "And I sort of lead it." " You're a doctor?" " Yeah." "Thank you." "I dare you not to love it." "So that's like a group session over there?" "Yeah, that's my group." " How's the bearclaw?" " It's good." " I'm Rube." " Ronnie." "This is a little awkward for me Ronnie, and I'm choosing my words very carefully, as you can imagine, being George's doctor and all." "." "Even though she's living on her own now, away from the facility," "I try to keep close tabs on here, I try to get a feel for the quality of people she hangs out with." "I'm just saying, whatever you got planned, be careful." "She's had a tough row in life and frankly, she can be a danger to herself = when stressed... and others." " You follow?" " I think so." "Good, you seem like a good kid." "I'd appreciate if you'd leave now." "You're making my group a little anxious." "Okay." "So, throw in and head out.George and I need to talk," "I got to make a sissy." "Well, she's still on the horse, so I guess that's a good thing." "I guess." "I didn't just pick the guy up." "He said he could see gravelings." "You can't get mad at me for that." "Do I look mad?" "A little." "Thank you." "Do you have any idea what would happen if the living caught wind we were here, amongst them, breaking bread?" "It would end up the world." "Believe me, you do not want to be responsible for that kind of biblical panic." "I didn't tell him anything." "You didn't mention you were a reaper?" " No." " You didn't talk about gravelings?" "I said that I could see them too, that's all..." "He think's they're death." "And he told you he's schizophrenic." "He said that he was on medication for seeing things." "Well, maybe what we really have here is a mentally unstable young man who thinks you're the cat's meow." "So this is all some plot on his part to get in my pants?" "Peanut, all mean are liars where pretty girls are implicated." "You can see their noses growing, trust me." "So you think I'm pretty." "Do you like convertables?" "Yeah, I guess." "I once gave Errol Flynn a handjob in a convertable." "That's a nice story." "So tell me about this guy." "What's there to tell, he's crazy and he sees gravelings." "That's a first." "Rube says it's not possible." "Well, that's Rube." "What do you mean?" "Rube's too smart for his own good." "If he can't wrap his brain around something weird or unexplainable, it doesn't exist." "It's sad, really." "So, do you like him?" "Did I mention he was crazy?" "What kind of car is that?" "I am a sucker for platinum." "What are you doing?" "Getting us a ride." "I 'love' your car." "Thanks." "I love your breasts." "Do you have room for two?" "We're trying to get downtown." "Um...sure let's just clear this out of here." "Hey, what the fuck!" "Hey!" "HEY!" "I thought it was really something this morning, seeing you up on that horse." "Tiens." "You know I used to ride when I was young." "There was this stable within walking distance of Grandma Phyl's house." "I don't want this." "Excuse me?" "I don't like riding horses." "It makes my hips hurt." "I want this." "A drum set?" "Yeah." "Well my job is not to give you your every desire... especially when you throw it back in my face." "In the future, when someone gives you a gift, you might want to have the common decency to say, "thank you", even if you hate it." "Thank you." "Why does everything always have to be such a struggle?" "I don't know." "Right." "I don't." "You know, Grandma Phyl was very supportive of my love of horses." "She bought me lessons, she even bought me a hand-made saddle from Spain." "I used to ride every day after school and weekends." "She wanted me to be good enough to compete, which I hated." "At the time I thought she was giving me what I wanted." "I suppose you'll be asking for lesson." "I figure I'd just teach myself." "Well, I'll have to talk to your father." "You know how he likes a quiet house." "I'm not a big fan of weddings, but a job is a job." "So I sat there watching those 50 happy people gathered to celebrate a marriage, dressed in their Sunday best." "About to hear some priests flowery words about the joining together of two souls, uniting as one...blah, blah, blah, blah... until death do them part, which would be in about 11 minutes." "You've got to get out of here." "I need to talk to you." "Not right now." "Please?" "How did you find me?" "I waited outside your building and the rest was pretty easy." "Did I see your doctor in there?" "Doc-Doctor?" "Rube." "Oh, he might be." "We've run in the same circle." "What is it you wanted to say?" "I just wanted to kiss you." "No..." "No way." "I can't" "It was my first post-death kiss." "That alone made it memorable." "Actually I came to say good-bye." "It was also my first post-death kiss-off." "I'm on the run." "I've got friends in Boise." "I can't stay in the city." "I'll be tested and I'll have to stay on meds and..." "I won't do that, my eyes have been opened." "I mean, like you..." "I've seen death and..." "I can't shut that off." "I don't want to." " Did you, uh..." " I don't--I can't really say." "Everybody out!" "Uh, everybody needs to get out or you're all going to die." "You really shouldn't have done that." "You're not welcome in this church, either of you." "Peanut, you are really trying my patience." " Well, we have to warn them." " Don't." "Stop." "Why wouldn't we?" "You want this to happen?" "Trust me, this has nothing to do with what I want." " But you're--you're death?" " No!" "This makes perfect sense." "Death taking the form of a beautiful girl trying to trick me." "Don't think I was getting all mushy because he said I was beautiful." "I'm not all that." "I'm just a cog." "I sort of work for death." "Rube?" "He's death?" "No...he's middle management." "But he knows about you, which means upper management knows about you." "And in this case, upper management probably is death." "So you might have to run farther than Idaho." "You may now kiss the bride." "I can't exactly tell you why I needed to kiss him." "I just knew I'd regret it if I hadn't." "And then, I did my job." "You should stay away from me." "Did you do it?" "Good girl." "You're not her doctor, are you?" "And you're not his patient." "No." "I'm not a doctor and she's not my patient." ":" "I thought I saw death coming for me." "I guess I was right, huh?" "They're not going to Bali for their honeymoon, are they?" "No." "That's really one of the saddest things I've ever heard." "They don't seem to mind." "You know, I really liked kissing you." "In Ronnies head, maybe he thought he could fly or that I had some special gift." "I guess he was right." "Maybe I do." "We all create in our heads who we are and who we want others to be." "And how we view ourselves" "hero, victim, loved, unloved-- changes over time." "Those little neurons spark along working overtime creating what we believe..." "So in that way, the mind kind of work like magic, making what we desire happen." "And in the end, maybe the trick to sorting it all out is trusting your voice, and being true to yourself, chasing your bliss." "You know, all-the-cliches on parade crap like marching to the beat of your own... whatever."