[silence]
[laughter]
[Man and Woman chuckling together]
Why are you laughing?
[laughing] I am so scared.
- Why? - I don't know.
- [laughs] - Don't be scared.
[ominous ambience ♪]
When I was little and we used to move all the time,
I'd write these notes,
and I would fold them up really small...
...and I would hide them in different places,
so that if I 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.
[Man] Why did you leave?
[chuckles]
Why'd you leave all those houses?
[Woman] 'Cause I didn't have a choice.
[eerie music ♪]
[creaking sounds]
Some weird noises in this house.
[tense orchestral music ♪]
[wind chimes jingling]
[keyboard clacking]
[discordant piano notes in other room]
What are you doin'?
[loud piano clunk]
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 still - 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...
[relaxing music ♪]
♪ ♪
[loud thud]
♪ ♪
[loud thud]
[music fades]
[birds chirping]
[loud, indistinct noise]
[door creaks]
[door closes]
Is there something there?
What was that?
I don't know.
Maybe something fell on the piano.
What time is it?
[sighs]
My heart's racing.
[birds chirping]
[distant train horn]
[birds chirping]
[crow cawing]
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.
[creaking sounds]
[footsteps passing in hall]
[dissonant music ♪]
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter]
[music intensifies ♪]
♪ ♪
[crackling sounds]
♪ ♪
[ambient music ♪]
♪ ♪
[birds chirping]
♪ ♪
[music fades out]
[car horn beeps in the distance]
[knocking on the door]
[keys jingling, unlocking]
[birds chirping]
[pen writing]
[door opens]
[door closes]
[door unlocks]
[birds chirping]
[sink running]
[sink stops]
[sniffles]
[continues sniffling]
[vomiting]
[coughing]
[ambient music ♪]
♪ ♪
[thunder rumbles]
[thunder]
[shower running]
No, no, it's not your fault.
Well, we were gonna be...
[conversation continues indistinctly]
♪ ♪
[door locks]
[wind blowing]
[chilling music ♪]
[no audible dialogue]
[sentimental music ♪]
♪ ♪
[door unlocks, opens]
[indistinct conversation]
[Woman] Are you gonna be okay to drive home?
[Man] Yeah. Are you?
[Woman] Thanks for taking me out.
[Man] Yeah.
It was fun.
Call me next week.
[Woman] Okay.
[kissing sounds]
[ominous music ♪]
[speaks indistinctly]
[electricity hums, rumbles]
[zapping, rumbling stops]
[music fades out]
[wind blowing]
[wind howling]
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?
'Kay, maybe.
[breathes deeply]
Here.
[slow electronic music ♪]
♪ Are you runnin' late? ♪
♪ 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 ♪
[vocalizing ♪]
[music fades out]
[sentimental music ♪]
[wind chimes jingling]
♪ ♪
[music fades out]
[Children giggling]
[Woman speaking Spanish in the distance]
[Woman] Okay?
[continues in Spanish]
[serene music ♪]
[Woman speaking Spanish]
Carlos!
No, no, no, no. Si, no.
[speaking Spanish]
Okay?
[speaking Spanish]
[notes on the piano ♪]
[Children speaking Spanish]
[Woman shouting in Spanish]
[speaking Spanish]
[conversation in Spanish]
[Woman speaking Spanish]
[whoosh]
[thump]
[dissonant music ♪]
[whispering] Yasmina.
[whispering in Spanish]
[door creaks]
[Yasmina screams]
♪ ♪
[laser beam noises]
[speaking Spanish]
[conversation in Spanish]
[dissonant tone intensifying ♪]
[speaking Spanish]
[plates shattering]
[shattering]
[Yasmina screams]
[screaming]
[music fades]
[Carlos] Mama.
[speaking Spanish]
[eerie ambience]
[crickets chirping]
[no audible dialogue]
[muffled conversations]
[muffled electronic music ♪]
♪ Breathe this moment like it's gonna be my last one ♪
♪ Light it up, burn it down... ♪
[Man] I don't know if you believe in the spirit world.
- [Woman] I do. - [Man] You do?
[Woman] Yeah, I totally do.
[Man] 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.
[Man] I want you to watch this very closely.
Because if the spirits are with us in this haunted house...
...they may divine the card.
[Woman] Holy shit.
[indistinct conversations]
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...
[Woman] 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?
[Woman] Polarities?
Priorities or whatever. Money's just money.
You gotta take that out of the equation. Now what?
[Woman] Well, that's what I was saying. It's not just...
[Man] 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?
- [Woman] What? Have God? - Yes.
No.
Okay.
Well, here's how I 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.
[humming Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" ♪]
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.
But even that doesn't matter.
Because even if some form of mankind
carries some recording of Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony"
all the way into the future,
the future's gonna hit a brick wall.
The universe will keep expanding,
and it'll eventually take all matter with it.
Everything you've ever strived for,
everything that you and some stranger
on the other side of the planet share with some future stranger
on some entirely different planet without even knowing it,
everything that ever made you feel big or stand up tall,
it'll all go.
Every atom in this dimension...
...will be pulled apart by force as simple as...
[can clatters]
And then all these shredded particles
will contract again...
...and the universe is gonna
suck itself back into a speck too small for any of us to see.
So, you can write a book...
...but the pages will burn.
You can sing a song and pass it down.
You can write a play and hope that folks will remember it...
...keep performing it.
You can build your dream house...
...but ultimately none of that matters any more
than digging your fingers into the ground
to bury a fence post.
Or... or fucking.
Which I guess is just about the same thing.
[electronic music playing ♪]
[electricity humming]
[humming, music stops]
[quiet scraping]
[thundering crash, shattering]
[equipment beeping]
[dove cooing]
[forlorn music ♪]
[no audible speech]
♪ ♪
[muffled equipment thundering]
♪ ♪
[muffled indistinct voices]
[muffled voices continue]
[no audible dialogue]
[dramatic music ♪]
♪ ♪
[music ends]
[wind blowing]
[birds singing]
[wagon approaching]
[horse whinnies]
[grass rustling]
[thunder rumbling]
[Woman] Thank you, O Lord, for these, Thy blessings,
which we are about to receive from Thy bounty.
Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
[thunder continues]
[Man] This is good.
This is good.
[thunder]
We'll have this house built.
Put it right there.
There. You see it? I know you can see it.
[chuckles]
A little house at first, but...
[speaks indistinctly] ...I'll build you a bigger one.
[fire crackling]
[faint sounds of activity]
[horse snorting]
[horse whinnies]
[wind blowing]
[distant war cries]
[flies buzzing]
[door unlocks, opens]
[Woman] Here we are.
Take a look around.
We've got two, uh, bedrooms back there with a bathroom.
The kitchen's that way.
There's a study/den.
We, uh, haven't had any tenants in a few months... [notes on piano]
- ...so it's a little musty. - [Man] Does it come with the piano?
Oh, it's... always...
[playing jazzy music ♪]
It's always been here.
- It's... If you want... - Does it come?
It's always been here.
♪ ♪
- I can't hear you. - I...
Yeah, if you keep playing...
- ...you can't here me. - I'm just kidding.
[Woman] Uh, it's always been here.
If you want, I can have it removed. [cell phone ringing]
[Man] No.
[Woman] I-I gotta take this.
Um, make yourself at home.
Thank you, Linda.
[Linda] Hello?
Hey.
Oh, no, I'm showing a house right now.
[ominous ambience]
[loud bang]
[birds chirping]
[Man singing] ♪ Are you runnin' late? ♪
♪ 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? ♪
♪ Leave you alone? ♪
♪ Alone ♪
♪ Mirror, mirror ♪
♪ There's your crooked nose ♪
♪ Boring hair ♪
♪ A dozen wrinkles ♪
- ♪ No children ♪ - Come on.
♪ Just emptiness ♪
- ♪ No place like home ♪ - [Woman] Which is fine. I get it.
That's what people do. They leave, they go away,
and then they come home again.
[Woman] I'm the one who's always here.
♪ Mess ♪
♪ 20 messages ♪
♪ Did you hurt your thumbs? ♪
What is it you like about this house so much?
Seriously?
History?
[Woman] What does that mean?
Honey, we've got history.
Not as much as you think.
[Man vocalizing ♪]
This isn't how it's supposed to work.
We're supposed to make decisions together.
Can't you understand that?
[Man] Yes.
So why am I the only one making them?
Because I don't want what you want.
'Cause you want to stay here?
Mm-hmm.
Why?
[tea kettle whistling]
[Man] Hey.
Hey.
What?
It's okay. We can go.
We can go.
[loud piano clang]
[intriguing music ♪]
I don't understand.
Something fell on the piano.
What time is it?
♪ ♪
[wind chimes jingling]
[wind blowing]