Déjà vu. It suddenly feels like I’ve written this entry before. Whoa! As I peck this from the keypad of my iPhone, somebody sings “I wonder if I will ever see you again” on the radio in McDonald’s here in Norco. For almost three seconds I see the world for the very first time. What a fantastic feeling.

Have you heard the theory of the Accordion Universe? If we believe the universe began with a Big Bang and will end when it collapses on itself, then the theory supposes that another Big Bang will take its place. From there the universe begins again, identical to the previous. Even time is identical. If your mother died of cancer in that universe, the same will occur in this one. If you kissed a girl on June 19th, 1995 in that universe, you can look forward to kissing her again some trillions of years later. You just won’t know it.

Déjà vu is leftover psychic residue, seeping through the cracks.

Which reminds me of Haruki Murakami’s popular short story, called “On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning.” I read it one afternoon in a bookstore. You can read it here if you like, or this:

A man sees a beautiful girl walking down the sidewalk. He tries to think of a reason to speak to her but he can’t. So he goes home. He thinks of something profound he should have said to her. The two of them were once lovers, he supposes. They knew each other to be soul mates. In order to test this, they decide to separate; if they meet again, then it must be true love. They go their separate ways. And then, each is stricken with raging influenza. On the verge of death, they both recover, but have lost their memory. Time passes. Now they have crossed paths with each other, they way they had hoped, but this time as strangers, unaware of the true love they had set out to prove.

“That is what I should have said to her,” the man says, and from there the story ends.

A Thousand Words by Ted Chung is a Murakami story without the surrealism. Which is to say it is a Chung story. The protagonist is a man with whom I share my immediate sympathies; who makes a choice that leads to the discovery of potential happiness. The story never rings false and is told with such efficiency of economy that it practically tells itself.

I want that efficiency for my script, which will be two-and-a-half times longer than Mr. Chung’s. I have seen “A Thousand Words” four times and have mentally dissected it. It’s my motivation; but it is not my inspiration. That belongs to this masterwork, Red. Is it a serious film? That’s a matter of intelligence, I suppose, the way football is a matter of strength: I have no doubts I consider it too rough while a stronger man may find it passively enjoyable.

What fascinates me about “Red” is the same with the Accordion Universe: it needn’t supply an answer. Like “A Thousand Words” didn’t need a conclusive ending to be romantic. Like how Murakami’s story, one of his most well known, is powerful due to an ending that in fact questions the romance. What I am getting at, what I am trying to say, is this:

I am scripting the ending, and I pray it does not suck.