▶ "One Step Beyond": The Visitor.

[Music] sooner or later each of us feels the need to escape the country folk go to the city the city folk go to the country this for example is a very pleasant form of escape here on this mountaintop we are a mere 10 miles from a city of 80 000 people each of whom like us has fashioned a small cage of reality out of the chaos of unreality each of whom like us lives his life by the steady reassuring ticking of the clock forgetting that the clock is merely man's invention and that tomorrow is a creation of the human mind forgetting that there is only the constant now but if that be true where does that leave yesterday [Music] now here comes the man from that city below that city of ticking clocks was about to escape his cage of reality ellen ellen [Music] feel tight for the stamp of the us government you scared me why well first the telephone call and then i came up to an empty house see so i got roaring drunk and fell off the mountain well i didn't went out for a walk i love it here so wild and lonely always seems such a joke the full bottle is proof that i have a will of iron you look absolutely wonderful but five days in the country won't do for some people what did you want to talk to me about ellen what was so urgent i take to the hospital today this person goes home at the end of the week i knew that harry when i think of how close i came to killing that man well you didn't no i didn't i didn't even see him i was so drunk he wasn't even a blur now come on ellen what next but new escapade for the madcap alcoholic maybe a school bus wipe out the whole kindergarten really hit the jackpot no i'm not smashing into anything harry of course you are i i'm through nearly killing people of shouting drunken curses and police stations of being bundled into straight jackets and whipped off to sanitariums oh and seeing lovely little goodies drift through the walls oh i didn't tell you last time i was pursued by an open coffin now that's a little more original than bats and pink elephants wouldn't you say fun and games are over guess why i don't know why but i'm sure i'm in favor of it because i've stopped kidding myself about us about us harry i have a little speech to make a simple sober little speech which couldn't be found in and which should have been said 500 drinks ago i don't need alcohol anymore i don't need you anymore i mean it hard you mean what i mean at last i've faced the truth it's a tired little cliche isn't it but that's just what happened and i i don't need a drink instead i don't need to have an affair instead and i don't need anything instead where's the other bottle of booze oh so i sound drunk want me to walk a straight line officer cause i can well this is all a lot of female emotionalism though it's probably your hormones or something why don't you stay up here for the rest of the week the way that dr mason told you to i intend to and then what i don't know what then maybe get the governor to declare her goodbye harry week with parades and dancing in the streets ellen i know what's wrong with us and so do you indeed i do 17 years times 365 days times 24 hours drift drift drink no i want i'm sorry it's not that simple mind if we skip that you want to sweep it all under the rug again and pretend it doesn't exist i don't even think about that anymore you don't talk about it you drink instead spare me the amateur analysis ellen where was i when we became stranger right here you've never believed me nope what do you want me to do stand on my head no let's not talk about it i never want to talk about it oh and i don't want to fight i'm not fighting lovers fight you better be getting back the way it's snowing the road may be closed pretty soon it wouldn't be that much of a catastrophe if i spent the night here harry it wouldn't be any more of a catastrophe than every night [Music] i think i like you better when you're drunk [Music] [Music] oh no you don't [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] uh excuse me uh i'm trying to reach portersville but i got lost in all this snow where's your car it's down the road i've been driving around in circles for i don't know how long you should have turned left about two miles back this is a dead end yes it's me again uh it'll take me 10 years to get out of these hills and this is the only house i can find anywhere around here would you mind if i'd use your telephone i'm all alone here my wife's in the hospital there's an emergency phone just as you turn off the highway how am i gonna find it in all the snow i told you i'm all alone thanks a lot young man huh of course you may use the phone help yourself it's right over here thanks i'm sorry i was so i'm sorry your wife's in the hospital your phone must be out of order i dial one dial and nothing happens but it was working what's the matter [Music] [Music] everything's okay you better okay that's better that's better how gentle you are i've forgotten how gentle you could be are you okay are you sure you're okay you're okay i don't want to leave you alone [Music] here it's nine o'clock visiting hours are over well i don't know what i'd have said to her even if i did see her that's a boy well i was 100 wrong about that my wife just had a baby an eight-pound five-ounce girl great big beautiful kid except she was dead i only saw her for a second she was wrapped up in a little blanket she looked like a life-sized little doll she had enough hair on her five-year-old you you hand these things out and um everybody slaps you on the back and says congratulations dad my wife congratulated me when they were taking her out of the uh delivery room i went over to her and she wouldn't even let me hold her hand she said well this is your lucky day the baby died your lucky day i remember her lucky day she thinks i wanted that didn't you we've only been married for a year and a half we're flat broke i work three times a week and i'm lucky to get that i i guess you don't know what it means to have nothing to come home to but fried liver and maybe a keynote movie is there some law against trying to get some fun out of life you settle down soon enough ellen and i wanted to travel we that was our dream we wanted to rub shoulders with everybody else in the world what you just can't do that with a kid strapped to your back we'd saved up about 200 and then surprise ellen was pregnant so i i told her that okay so you're pregnant it's not the end of the world we can do something about it but uh she wouldn't i guess that sounds awful selfish to you but let me tell you something i got a little bomb in my pocket it's a time bomb it's called a draft card this one's got one a on it if i've got any living to do i got to do it right now i haven't got time to be unselfish you are lucky the baby died oh i was sitting in that that hospital waiting room oh all the rest of those expectant fathers pacing up and down jumping out of the skins every time a nurse went by a bunch of boobs and all of a sudden a kid started to yell and i thought hey that must be my kid well it wasn't but uh the funniest feeling came over me all right i know i don't fit into the pattern i'm not crazy about hot dogs and i don't go out bowling with the boys and i don't i never went over and felt every time the baby moved i didn't go out rushing out in the middle of the night to buy ellen pickles and ice cream but sitting there in that waiting room i began to realize that whatever was gonna be born would live and breathe and grow up and be a part of the world just because ellen and i love each other did you ever get into portersville very much if you wanted to see a really beautiful girl you could go into the national bank she was a blonde secretary behind the desk in the escrow department there's an expression on her face it's a look in her eyes excellent [Music] like just being alive is something so red hot and special it should be in all the headlines sometimes i used to just go in there and look at her and say baby well i i guess i i guess i catch on slow but sitting there in that hospital waiting room it really began to hit me what this child really meant [Music] the flesh and blood proof of what ellen and i really were to each other and all of a sudden this feeling came over me [Music] it made all the cities and the mountains and the trains and countries like nothing so then when they uh came and told me that the uh things weren't going very well in the operating room in the delivery room well they got a chaplain hospital maybe i should have gone down there to pray but i went to the men's room and cried and then i told myself that everything was gonna be okay i don't know why but i felt absolutely sure of it and um just for good luck and to show my confidence i guess i got some of these things in the lobby and uh then i went upstairs and that's when they were wheeling her out and that's when she said it to me this is your lucky day the baby died we could live together for 50 years she'll never think i wanted that baby and they'll ruin everything i do believe you am i suit different am i so changed who are you [Music] aah [Music] look i called dr mason an hour ago yes of course i'm sure yes of course i am well he couldn't have lived then it's only 20 minutes drive i am i am controlling my oh i'm sorry ah [Music] dr mason i'm not imagining things it's not like before you see i i called you and you're here and he was here the way he was he was here i'm not drunk helen i made a stupid mistake i put your records in the inactive file i didn't open that bottle i suppose he did that he did please believe me believe me he was here i was where ellen he was in a burning car that's where he was and by extremely good luck i saw him as i came up to see you are you all right i was out cold for a while but i'm all right now ellen ellen ellen how did it start this time you hand these out and they slap you on the back and say congratulations dad it's a boy boy well she couldn't have had much to drink the bottle's almost full she's not drunk woman what is she good night doctor harry i think i know ellen's problems a little better than you do do you ellen i'm gonna leave some of these for you and you can take them if you need them you know how you've had them before and i'll call you in the morning and uh i think a couple of these might help you good night [Music] i wanna what happened here tonight you wouldn't believe me try me oh harry [Music] he believed it he had to well was it all a delusion it's a boy now that certainly was not a delusion then what happened to ellen grayson was it an hallucination was it an accident in time or did the unconscious harry grayson will himself back to the man he was to convince ellen of his love what you've just seen is not so uncommon as you might think in the annals of psychic experience man has just begun to probe the world beyond his cage of reality in that constant and marvelous and eternal world of the now who knows what he'll find [Music] you

Channel: One-Step-Beyond

Views: 117,463

Keywords: One Step Beyond

Id: u7dk896kcuk

Length: 22min 1sec (1321 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 24 2016