[ Jack Kadoorie ]

side of the platform. Lydia, startled, falls backwards as the train flies through the station. As the train disappears, so too does the man who startled Lydia. Hoping for more privacy, Lydia follows the tracks to a rural area. She hears a train approaching in the distance. She lays herself down on the tracks, ready to die as she gazes as the stars. The train lights get brighter and the sound of the train gets louder and louder. The sound and the lights of the train stop. It is silent. Lydia looks for the train but there is no train in sight. A mysterious figure approaches Lydia in the distance. The man who had startled Lydia walks along the tracks, stopping in a surprised manner once he sees Lydia sitting on the tracks. They smile awkwardly at one another.

 

Lydia sits with the man at a vibrant night cafe. Lydia explains to the stranger that she very much plans to kill herself tonight. The stranger is friendly in a comical way, somewhat dim but understanding nevertheless. The stranger asks Lydia why someone so young would want to kill themselves, and Lydia reluctantly answers. The pair talk as if they are friends at a pub discussing VAR, rather than two strangers reflecting on one’s seemingly inevitable suicide. Realising that he cannot change Lydia’s mind the stranger departs. Lydia, for one last time, looks at the happy people at the cafe before going home.

 

Lydia arrives at her flat building, but before getting into her flat she bumps into her neighbour Mr Havers. Mr Havers is an elderly gentleman who is sweet and caring. He asks Lydia to keep playing her piano as he likes hearing it as a reminder that there are other people in the building. He asks Lydia what exciting plans she has for new years eve, but before Lydia can lie to Mr Havers we cut to a scene a few minutes later, of Lydia alone in her flat. The TV is on in the background as the nation prepares for another New Year. However, Lydia’s attention is on something else as she frantically searches for the rope that she will kill herself with, but typically now that she needs it she cannot find it! She turns the telly off to concentrate on its location. Soon enough, the TV turns itself back on. Annoyed, Lydia turns it off and continues to search for the rope. Once more, the telly turns on. Lydia turns the TV off again, this time from its button. “Hey! I was watching that!”. Lydia hears a voice from her sofa. She turns around slowly, bemused and somewhat frightened. The stranger from earlier sits on the sofa nonchalantly as if it is his flat. Confused Lydia asks of his presence. The stranger reveals himself to be Death, and precedes to friendlily berate Lydia and the lack of her rope. Death tells Lydia that there are plenty of ways for her to kill herself, but Lydia is set on a rope. Death orders a rope for Lydia and the pair wait for it to arrive. However, moments later they are interrupted by a knock at the door. A package has been delivered, but it is not rope shaped. It is very flat and square. Lydia returns to her living room and Death is gone. Lydia opens the package, curious about its contents. She removes the wrapping to reveal a vinyl record in a matte black sleeve. Curious to hear the vinyl, she places it onto her record player and presses the needle to the vinyl.

 

Lydia is transported to a vibrant and nostalgic nightclub. Teens dance and have fun on the dancefloor that surrounds the floor. Lydia explores the nightclub in complete disbelief. Lydia finds herself at the bar, when a huge group of partygoers are being directed to the bar for a photograph. They include Lydia in the photograph, as one of the partygoers places their arms around Lydia for the photograph. She smiles. The group soon disperse leaving Lydia and Eliza at opposite sides of the bar. They smile at one another. Eliza is exuberant, but similarly shy like Lydia. Eliza leaves for the dancefloor. She turns back to smile at Lydia, but Lydia is no longer at the bar.

 

Lydia falls onto the sofa of her living room. She looks at the record player in disbelief. Lydia returns to the nightclub, if only as a test. She goes back to the bar to talk to Johnny, a barman. Lydia asks Johnny a plethora of questions about the validity of dreams and how they can trick the brain into thinking something is real. Johnny, mistaking Lydia for one of his drunker patrons, obliges Lydia’s conversation. Lydia comes to the conclusion that if she is to prove that the nightclub is in fact real, she must try something that she has never had before in the nightclub, and later in a scenario of certain authenticity try the same thing to find out if the taste was the same. 

 

Lydia notices a sign advertising Hanson’s in the new year, a recipe that has not changed for years, and a drink she has never tried. However, there is none available for her to try at the bar as it is being kept under lock and key in the cellar. Lydia steals the set of keys from Johnny and heads to the basement to find the drink. In the cellar she searches for the drink but to no avail. She hears somebody coming and crouches quickly, causing a wine bottle to slowly fall and smash into a water pipe. Lester, the owner of the nightclub, hears the noise and comes to the cellar. Lydia tries desperately not to be caught by Lester but is soon spotted. At the same moment, Lydia notices a bottle of Hanson’s whiskey. She dashes for the bottle as Lester races to stop her. She gets to the bottle and puts it to her lips. 

 

Lydia is escorted outside of the nightclub. She has the look on her face of somebody who has just had their first sip of whiskey. Lydia, now outside, takes in the location. It looks familiar but Lydia cannot recognise why it does so. Eliza comes outside for a cigarette and begins to talk to Lydia. It quickly becomes evident that Lydia feels an instant connection for Eliza. Eliza shows Lydia a mural on the side of the building, a celebration of the nineties full of pop-cultural references and famous faces. Lydia remarks that the art is so incredible that it’s a shame somebody has parked an old banger right next to it. Eliza looks to ‘97 plate automobile Lydia is referring to. “It’s only a few years old, Victoria Adams” Eliza remarks as she finishes her cigarette and returns inside. Lydia takes a closer look at the car, before once again falling to her sofa.

 

Death is sat playing the piano with his bony fingers. Lydia questions Death about the vinyl record but Death assures Lydia that it has nothing to do with him. Lydia becomes visibly upset and Death tries his best to comfort her. He places his hand onto hers which causes Death to see a memory of Lydia’s. The memory is of Lydia coming out to her mother. Lydia is sitting in her childhood home bedroom with her mother. Lydia’s mother has discovered messages and believes Lydia is going through a phase of sexual experimentation. However, Lydia quashes the notion to reveal to her mother that she is in fact gay. Mrs Levy forbids it and the two engage in an argument, culminating in Lydia saying something very hurtful to her mother. Lydia pulls her hand away from Death’s, before becoming somewhat angry that Death has invaded her privacy in such a manner. Lydia leaves her apartment in her quest to find out if the nightclub is real, and despite it being his busiest night of the year, Death accompanies Lydia.

Lydia and Death begin to chat on the way about how Lydia intends to get the whiskey after giving away the last of her cash. Lydia reveals that they can find some at the party she was previously at, the party of her lecturer. Death, unconvinced of Lydia’s reasoning, playfully suggests that Lydia has a crush on Mr Chambers and that’s the real reason they’re going there. This does not sit well with Lydia, who gets annoyed at Death and begins to storm off. Seemingly out of nowhere, a double decker bus speeds towards Lydia. Death grabs her hand and pulls her off the road. As he does this, Death sees another one of Lydia’s memories.

 

In the flashback we see Lydia sitting alone on the sofa in Mr Chamber’s lounge. Mr Chambers enters with a glass of whiskey in hand, offering Lydia a taste who politely declines. Lydia takes out her sheet music to go through with Mr Chambers, but he thinks it would be better to relax rather than work. Mr Chambers sits next to Lydia on the sofa as he regales Lydia with facts about his favourite opera, Don Giovanni - the tale of a beloved and powerful man. Mr Chambers forces himself onto Lydia, trying to kiss her. She moves backwards declining the kiss. Mr Chambers plays it off, soon trying again. Lydia stands up but Mr Chambers grabs her hair, pulling her back down to the sofa Mr Chambers insists that if Lydia is not willing to partake in the fun activities he wishes to, that he holds a powerful sway on the fun she has at university. Mr Chambers begins to kiss Lydia again. Out of fear, she does not force him away. End of flashback.

 

The bus continues on its route. Death apologises to an understandably upset Lydia. Lydia storms off to continue her task of getting to Mr Chamber’s home and finding the whiskey that she needs to taste, hopefully without being noticed - especially by Mr Chambers. Lydia is in the kitchen of Mr Chamber’s home rummaging through bottles. Mr Chambers enters the kitchen, much to Lydia’s displeasure. Mr Chambers suggests to Lydia that the pair of them should go somewhere more private for more fun, suggesting that there may be a bottle of Hanson’s in his bedroom. Lydia declines the offer, noticing that there is Hanson’s whiskey in the glass Mr Chambers is holding. She takes a swig from the glass as Mr Chamber endeavours to persuade Lydia to join him upstairs. Lydia tastes the whiskey. Her reaction suggests that the taste is the same. Maybe identical. For the first time, in a long time, Lydia feels hopeful - a small glimpse of elation in a long series of losses. She plucks the courage to tell Mr Chambers what she really thinks of him, and leaves confidently.

 

She walks back to her home with Death. Death apologises for seeing such a private memory but Lydia says she only reacted like that because she was embarrassed. Death tells Lydia that such a memory shouldn’t make her feel embarrassed, and that life is unfair to allow Lydia to be alone on New Year’s Eve, whereas Mr Chambers is surrounded by friends. Death also tells Lydia the actual plot of Don Giovanni, which is that of a story about a rapist who gets what is coming to him. Lydia smiles and thanks Death, before telling him about Eliza, the girl she doesn’t know anything about but for some reason is infatuated with. Death doesn’t find it strange at all, and says it’s how all the old movies are. Death unexpectedly performs a musical number (Track 1: Feeling) as if they are in a Hollywood movie of the fifties. Death dances with Lydia through the streets, before performing his grand finale - stomping on the floor in a similar fashion to Gene Kelly in ‘Singing in the Rain’. However, on his final stomp Death hits the ground too hard causing his ankle to pop out of its socket. He hops to a nearby wall and falls to the floor. Lydia follows him to the wall, looking at it in disbelief.

 

Above Death, on the wall, is the mural of the nineties that Eliza had shown her earlier, faded but definitely there. Lydia screams with elation, which is quickly silenced by Lester who comes out of the, now closed, nightclub to see what all the commotion is about. Lester and Lydia sit in the dilapidated nightclub. Lester reminisces about his vibrant nightclub to a curious Lydia, desperate for proof that both she and Eliza were here. Lester reveals that he keeps all of the photographs in the cellar. Lydia rummages through the photographs in the cellar as Lester wanders around. Lester stops as if he is remembering something. He looks towards Lydia, asking if he knows her from somewhere. Lydia continues to search, to no avail. Lester continues to walk, stopping at a bottle of Hanson’s whiskey. A bemused look falls upon his face. Lydia finds a photograph of Lydia and Eliza amongst partygoers at the bar. She says goodbye to Lester, who nods goodbye and smiles with a nature of bemusement and disbelief.

 

Lydia uses the vinyl to spend a lot of her night with Eliza. Eliza reveals to Lydia that she too is gay. They flirt and dance and talk. However, every  few minutes Lydia returns to her nightclub. Eliza wonders why Lydia keeps excusing herself so often, contemplating if Lydia genuinely likes her company. Eliza takes Lydia to the rooftop. They gaze down at the city. They are vulnerable with one another. Lydia almost tells Eliza about her depression but chooses not to, not wanting to ruin a seemingly perfect moment. Lydia and Eliza kiss passionately. Lydia tells Eliza that she has to go somewhere quickly, but will be back soon. Eliza becomes annoyed with Lydia telling her to just leave for good if she doesn’t want to be there. Lydia doesn’t know how to reply without sounding completely delirious. 

 

Lydia is once more in her living room. Lydia’s mother rings to apologise to Lydia but is interrupted by Death. Death asks Lydia where Mr Haver’s lives. Realising that Death has been tasked to take Mr Haver’s soul as well as hers tonight, she argues with Death that Mr Haver’s is too healthy to die tonight. Death tells Lydia that the cause of death will be suicide. Lydia races to his flat to try and persuade him otherwise. Mr Havers tells Lydia that it is a decision that he made a long time ago and he had finally gotten the courage to do it. Mr Havers tells Lydia that his family are all gone. His wife died a few years back, his son has moved on with his life and he doesn’t talk to his daughter anymore - despite being very close. Lydia reveals to Mr Havers that she too plans to kill herself telling him that she is afraid of being completely unremarkable. “What if the only significant thing I can ever do is kill myself?”. Mr Havers, with his years of experience, tells Lydia that he’d much rather be happy than remarkable. 

 

Lydia returns to her flat to find that two burglars are taking her things. The two hooded teens that Lydia confronted earlier, are in Lydia’s flat. They grab Lydia and push her to the sofa, locking the door as they do so. The alpha pulls a knife on Lydia and threatens to slice her gut, as he instructs his friend to take all the jewellery and tech from the bedroom. They notice the record player, and knowing that some can be valuable, decide to take that. Lydia forbids them from taking the record player. She makes a move for the record player, desperately trying to touch the vinyl with the needle. The teens pull her back and take the record player from her grasp. The alpha holds the knife firmly to Lydia’s throat. Suddenly, the telly turns on by itself. The lights begin to flicker. Notes on the piano begin to play. The latch of the door slides open. The two teens look around in disbelief, the alpha still holding a knife to Lydia. Lydia begins to slowly rise up in the air.  The door flies open startling the teens. They rush out of the flat leaving the record player in Lydia’s possession, and dropping the knife as they do so. Lydia floats down to her sofa and begins to weep. She tells Death she is ready to die, but Death does not appear.

 

Upstairs in the flat of Mr Havers, Death enters to see that Mr Havers has taken his own life. Death, visibly upset, slowly removes Mr Haver’s soul from his body. A pedestal shot takes us back to Lydia’s flat. Lydia rings her mum to reconcile. She forgives her mother for how she reacted, and her mother forgives Lydia too. Death enters the flat. Lydia tells him that she is ready to die, but Death convinces her that she should at least say goodbye to Eliza. Reluctantly, Lydia agrees. At the nightclub Lydia apologises to Eliza, telling her that she cannot explain why she can’t be with Eliza but wishes more than anything she could. They slowly dance, holding each other tightly, perhaps for the last time. Lydia falls back onto the sofa. She looks at the record, her eyes widen. She inspects the records back. She notices that the B side has grooves as well. She flips the record B side up and pushes the needle to vinyl.

 

Lydia hesitantly enters a quaint record shop. Lydia walks around the shop and begins to take a closer look at the shelves. It soon becomes evident that the records are not normal records, like you would expect to see in a record shop. She takes out a record to inspect it closer. The record she holds is designed like a memoriam; on the cover is a name, a photograph and the dates lived. Lydia looks at another, and another. They are all memoriam records. Lydia races to the ‘L’ section, curious if she (Lydia Levy) will have a record. She finds the section and picks up the record with her name on, “No date of death”.

“Well, you haven’t died yet Lydia”. Death emerges from the stock room. Death tells Lydia that this is the collection of all the souls that he has collected in his tenure as Death. His collection is large and overflowing. Death shows Lydia his latest addition, Mr Havers, telling her that he killed himself moments ago. Lydia is upset but does not blame Death. Death then tells Lydia that he wants to show her his first, but she cannot be mad at him. Lydia obliges. Death shows Lydia a record which reads Eliza Havers, 1981-1999. Lydia does not believe it, becoming visibly upset and angry. Death that the night that Lydia met Eliza is the night that she killed herself in the toilets of the nightclub. Death plays the record to show Lydia exactly what happened. Lydia becomes angrier with Death, telling Death that she was never his friend. She tells Death to add her to his collection but Death tells Lydia that he cannot do it. Lydia calls him a coward, but Death does not retaliate. He apologises to his friend and sends her back to her living room.

 

Lydia looks defeated as she sits in her living room. She stares once more at the photograph of her and Eliza. She checks her phone realising that there is still time to save Eliza. She plays the record once more. Once in the nightclub, she races to the ladies toilets to save Eliza. However, because Lydia broke a water pipe in the cellar the toilets are out of order and subsequently locked. Lydia tries to think where Eliza may be. Lydia races to the rooftop where she finds Eliza standing over the edge. Lydia begs Eliza to not jump, however Eliza believes Lydia to be a figment of her imagination - the perfect girl created by her brain as a last resort survival instinct. Lydia tells Eliza that it’s her that is the perfect girl, that Eliza is the girl of Lydia’s dreams. Eliza inches closer to the edge. In a desperate attempt to stop her Lydia tells Eliza that she is from the future. Unknowing whether such nonsense could be true Eliza leaps forward. Lydia sprints towards the ledge dropping the photograph in the process. Lydia grabs the hand of Eliza, who still has one foot hanging on the ledge. Lydia pulls Eliza backwards, forcing her back onto the ledge, but at the same time launching Lydia towards the edge. Eliza stumbles onto the rooftop safely. She looks at Lydia who begins to fall off the building. Eliza looks down at a falling Lydia. Before Lydia can plummet to the unforgiving concrete she vanishes in mid-air. Eliza, in disbelief, takes a few steps backwards. She lifts up the photograph, and smiles, perhaps realising that Lydia was telling the truth. 

 

Lydia crashes onto her sofa with such velocity that she falls off the sofa and onto the floor. Her hand lands firmly on the knife that the alpha teen had dropped earlier. Lydia begins to bleed. She looks at the knife and holds it to her gut. She then looks at her cut and then at the record. Lydia uses the knife to etch a deep cut into the vinyl record. She looks at the record and quietly laughs to herself. She picks the record player up and places it in the middle of her sofa. She places the scratched record in the record player. Lydia looks at the knife in her right hand. Lydia carefully places the knife upright on her sofa, leaning against the record player. Lydia looks around her flat, as if she is saying goodbye to the four walls that surround her. She takes a deep breath and places the needle to the record, instantly dissolving.

 

Lydia stays on the dancefloor in the vibrant nightclub anticipating her inevitable death. The countdown begins. Lydia expects once the countdown gets to one she will fall back onto her sofa. The countdown gets to the 3, 2, 1. People cheer with elation. Lydia hesitantly opens her eyes. She looks around in disbelief. She waits for a few moments more but nothing happens. A few more moments pass and Lydia stays where she is. It dawns on Lydia that this is the longest she has been at the nightclub without returning. Joy fills her face. Lydia and Eliza notice each other from opposite sides of the nightclub.

 

Lydia and Eliza walk down the street hand in hand, on their way to see a late night fireworks display. On the way, Lydia notices a familiar sight, the record shop she went to earlier. Eliza notices the shop is open and rushes in, Lydia hesitantly follows. Lydia looks around the shop, which now appears to be selling the usual records of the nineties. A shopkeeper sits patiently reading a paperback version of Don Giovanni. “I take it one of you is Lydia?”.  The shopkeeper hands Lydia a vinyl record. The sleeve is matte black. It is the same one delivered to her flat earlier that night. A note on the record reads: Keep safe and deliver on time. From your friend, D. Lydia thanks the shopkeeper and tells him that if he ever sees the man who gave him the record, to tell him that she is sorry. Lydia and Eliza leave. The shopkeeper flips the open sign to close and lets out a large sigh. The shopkeeper slowly transforms into Death. He looks down at his bony hands, which slowly begin to transform into fleshy human hands. He takes out Lydia’s rope and looks upwards at a beam on the ceiling, smiling as he does so.

 

Lydia and Eliza await fireworks. The camera pans down to their interlocked hands. The shot dissolves into  a similar shot. However, the hands are now wrinkled. The camera pans upwards to see Lydia and Eliza eagerly awaiting fireworks. They are now both in their forties. Lydia tells Eliza that she has to do something but will be back soon. Lydia walks to her old apartment and peers into the window to see her younger self talking to Death. She smiles with fondness. She enters her flat building and places the flat package on her doorstep. She knocks thrice before quickly hiding by the stairs. (Young) Lydia opens the door to her flat to see nobody is there. She looks down at the flat package and takes it inside. Lydia returns to Eliza to await the fireworks. The shot dissolves to them once again awaiting the fireworks as teenagers. The fireworks begin filling the sky with huge booms and bangs. It is beautiful and exhilarating. Lydia looks at Eliza. Eliza looks back. They kiss passionately. Fade out.