Death Mask (2026)

[bunniefuu]

- Oliver.

Evelyn?

Oliver?

Evelyn?

It's Sam Cooke.

I brought you some eggs.

Oliver?

Evelyn?

- I'm so sorry. I don't know what to do.

- Oliver.

Evelyn, it's Sam Cooke.

Just wanted to see if you guys

needed some eggs this week.

If you do, give me a call. I'll stop by.

Thanks.

- Hello?

- Ollie?

Ollie, my love. I have news for you.

Great news. Tremendous news.

Now, I know that we have a

contract to finish a painting,

but right now, I want you

to just put that on hold.

Just absolutely forget about it.

The Sonnenberg wants

you to create an installation

for the lobby of their new wing!

They want something simple, yet radical,

and 100% Oliver Black.

And Ollie, they're going

to pay you through the roof!

- I'm listening, yeah.

- They're dedicating their new wi

to the personal works of

all the great American artists!

They want an installation

and they want it fast.

Oh, honey, I hate to put pressure on you

but it's the g*dd*mn Sonnenberg!

We can't afford to pass this up!

Now, honey, I know, I

know this is short notice,

but do you have any ideas?

I have an idea.

- That's why

you're my favorite client.

Favorite, favorite artist.

Ollie?

Ollie, are you there?

- Yeah.

I'm just, I'm

just thinking, 'cause yeah...

I should go get to work.

- Fantastic.

How's Evelyn?

- She's great. She's resting.

- Give her my love.

- I will.

- So then.

I don't know.

I don't want you to choke.

Your hand is so cold.

- I'm in here.

It's,

it's so dark.

It's so dark.

Look for me.

Another bird flew into the window.

So, I left it open.

- Evelyn?

- It's so cold.

Ollie, can you hand me a blanket?

My arms don't wanna move.

The desire to see the

world and not be in the world.

So many tiny bodies.

It's like a fire.

Music.

That's better.

Don't you think?

- Mm-hm.

Yeah.

- Is the window still open, then?

- No, it's closed.

- Is it winter already?

How long did I sleep?

I fell asleep?

I feel like I was in the

middle of something.

Ollie.

I'm still cold.

The music isn't helping.

- So, did you,

did you see him?

- Who?

- Jesus?

Buddha?

The white light?

- No.

It's hard to describe, really.

It's, it's more a feeling.

Like a warm light.

Liquid oneness.

The senses are heightened

and the field of awareness is,

is endless.

You feel no sense of your physical body.

And yet, you feel everything.

Hear everything.

It's infinite and nothing.

But then, you allow it.

There's no more

thinking, and it's beautiful.

You're free.

- What's happening?

- What?

Hello?

They're telling me...

- What's happening?

- I'm with them now. - Who's "them"?

- The recent arrivals.

Someone's telling me something.

They're saying, they're telling

me that we have five days.

Whatever this is, we

have five days and then

you go away from me.

Be gone.

- Who's telling you?

- The guides.

It's just the guides.

Guides.

They say we'll be

reunited in the next phase.

- Next phase of what?

- Next phase.

Evolution.

It's like trying to describe a color

you've never seen

before, in another language.

Maybe color isn't it.

No. Maybe it's like music.

Because we can hear it

coming from this machine,

but we can't see it, or feel it.

And yet, it's, it's everywhere.

The sound wave is

invisible, but it's everywhere.

It's here.

And it's here. We're moving through it.

That's what it's like. It's like music.

It's everywhere.

It's so beautiful.

- Well, I wanna

see it, too. You know?

- You really wanna know what it's like?

Then come with me.

- Now?

- Now.

And now, how many times

have we driven by here,

without really seeing

what we're looking at?

Or feeling the texture

in the air around us?

This structure.

That lake.

This turn in the road.

Because you already know all of this,

you probably haven't seen any of it.

You've just gone right on by, missing it

Seeing what you thought you saw before,

and missing out on all the beauty.

And if you're on a different path,

a road you've never been down,

you don't know what's ahead of you.

You have no idea what's coming up,

what's about to happen.

And that forces you to

become very attentive,

and very present.

And it's in that moment

of not knowing, Ollie,

inside the unknown,

you're alive.

Really alive.

It's the most beautiful place to be.

Sorry to interrupt.

We always struggled dancing, didn't we?

- Well that's because you

always wanted to leave.

- I can read your intentions

with a lot more clarity now.

- Mm!

Does that mean that

you're willing to follow?

- Let's see.

Sorry to interrupt.

Are you all right?

I want this painting to be my headstone.

- "Headstone."

- Oh, it used to bother

me so much, but now,

I can see what you're

going for and I love it.

- I was just trying

to get at the truth, I guess.

- I love how much it shows

how much I was holding inside.

You know, it's not what we

express that drives us crazy.

It's what we keep buried inside.

- Alex, what in God's

name are you doing up here?

- You have not been answering your phone

so I just decided to come up!

- Wait, wait. - No, no.

Do these windows open?

- No, but it does break, so be careful.

- Oh, Ollie.

Why haven't you been answering your phon

I'm sorry, Ollie, but,

is there something that

matter with your sewer?

- Yeah, I think there might be.

I'll get it looked at.

- We can get you a studio in the city,

if you need a clean place to work.

- I like working here.

- Sweetie, I know. I know

these things take time.

But you've been ignoring me!

Can I see the work?

- I promise you, as soon as it's ready,

you will be the very

first person to see it.

- That's all I wanted to know.

You must answer the phone when I call yo

- You know what?

Not only will I answer it, I'll pick it

and I'll call you.

How's that? - I like that.

- It'll be good. - Yes, thank you.

- You know, she hasn't

always been honest with you.

- About what?

- About money.

And other things.

- What other things?

- Your work.

She thinks you've lost it.

That you're out of touch.

She doesn't understand.

- How'd you find out about this

- I can hear thoughts, somehow.

The frequency's different

when there's an obstacle in it.

Like a lie.

So

what, is this whole thing

with the Sonnenbergs a lie?

- No.

No, no. This one's honest.

I'm being shown how to

connect to different frequencies.

- So,

can you read my mind?

- Yes.

The tree has turned blue.

- Why blue?

Remember that awful hobby I picked up,

painting the Ukrainian Easter eggs?

- Oh, yeah. You were into that.

- It was so tedious.

Hours and hours, just

painting and repainting,

the same surface.

I kind of obsessed on it.

I think I was just so tense,

trying to make it beautiful.

I ended up shattering it

into a thousand pieces.

- Isn't that how they make

'em stronger, sometimes?

Didn't they do that on purpose?

- What, break them,

and put 'em back together?

- It's true in nature.

Cells have to break apart

in order to keep growing.

Muscles.

Humans.

Maybe we had to get broken

apart to be made stronger.

- I think, in the end,

I was just more interested in the egg.

Ollie.

Why did I die?

Why won't you tell me?

I wonder can you hear

the sound of that color?

Oliver, the mind can't tell the differen

between what is real and what is imagine

The mind can't tell the

difference between what is real

and what is imagined.

The mind can't tell the

difference between what is real

and what is imagined.

This is the truth of the universe.

- Hey, guys? You can come down this way.

You don't have to go in the house.

- Down that way? - Yeah.

- The hell were you thinking,

sending plumbers over here?

- It's a problem that needed

to be fixed and I'm fixing it!

- Well, next time give

me a heads up, all right?

It's my house.

Christ.

- Oliver, I want to see the work.

my God.

What is it?

- The divine essence.

Accompanied by gods from above.

Beasts from below.

The extra-dimensional emissary.

The earthbound primitivist.

It's all aspects of Evelyn.

- Evelyn? - Mm.

- Has she seen it?

What does she think of it?

- I haven't asked.

- It's not finished.

- That's what "a work in progress" means

I said it was a work in progress.

You understand that the

wax becomes bronze, right?

And that the feather

won't be there on the day-

- Well, let me know when it will be read

for the Sonnenberg to pick up.

Buy Evelyn something nice.

- Thank you, Alex.

I'll help you out.

- So, we snaked the main water line,

and somehow, something

has backed up your system,

and it won't drain.

So, we're gonna have to flush everything

Every drain in the house.

Starting with the ones

on the top floor, 'cause I...

- Um, no.

Actually, we don't use

one on the top floor.

Just the one off the kitchen.

Get to it this way, though. I'll show yo

- All right. Get this.

Yeah, yeah.

yeah, it looks whatever's

affecting the drain down here

is coming from the pipes upstairs.

You think I can take a look

at that second floor bathroom?

- Like I said, we don't use it.

It's turned off, so...

- Look, I know it's tough

having guys work in your house,

but if you just let me take a look,

I think I can fix it, get outta your hai

- Yeah, no, I appreciate it

because I know I have to pay,

each time you come but it'd be better,

'd make more sense to do it that way,

but this is not a good time.

- Look, I don't wanna-

whatever you put in that tub

was the culprit.

I cleaned up for ya. Scraped it all out.

Put some drain cleaner down her.

I wouldn't flush it for an hour or two.

Tomorrow morning, probably be best.

- All righty, then.

Thank you.

- Have a good day.

- Oh, my God. You're back.

- We can't ever do

anything like that again.

- But it, it worked.

I almost...

- They won't let it happen.

They said it shouldn't happen.

- Why? What if I want to go?

- It's not your time.

- Who gets to decide that, if not me?

If I want to be with you

more than I want to stay here.

- I know, baby, but not yet.

You're not finished.

- This is all dead to me now.

I want to move on with you.

- I know, but I have to go alone.

Please don't. There's nothing to negotia

Don't think there's anything you can do.

- Then why did you come back?

Why didn't you just stay there?

- I came back to say goodbye.

- No!

I need you, here.

I have you in everywhere.

In in my work.

It's... - Oliver.

You've been so busy,

but now you need to stop.

You need to stop being

so busy and just rest.

Rest and let all the pain in.

Let it in, so you can let it go.

Then you can begin again.

I love you, Oliver.

That's all we are, you know, is love.

- It's not so easy to feel

that when you're all alone.

- Love is everywhere and in everything.

Connect with that and then

we will always be together.

Connect with that.

I always pick up a feather when I see it

'cause a feather is a

message from the spirit world.

It means the spirits are with you,

depending on the feather that you find,

or the feather that finds you.

So, whenever you see a feather, you'll k

that I'm near you.

- Oliver.

Evelyn?

Oliver?

Evelyn?

It's Sam Cooke.

I brought you some eggs.

Oliver?

Evelyn?

- Eddie Sonnenberg, may

I present, Oliver Black.

- It's nice to meet you.

- A pleasure to meet you.

Actually, have we ever met?

- No.

I know your work.

- Yeah, you just seem familiar.

So, come on in.

So, the Russians.

These portraits represent a

cross section, a random sampling

of those who were considered

to be counter-revolutionaries.

So, Stalin had his secret

police round them up,

document them with photographs,

and then taken out and shot in the head.

So, they all know they're about to die,

and they're in immediate sense of awaren

of their own mortality.

And so you get to see, in each face,

that I was completely

mesmerized when I was working,

by the confluence of

different emotional states.

The fear and the anger.

The regret and the?

Well, everything going on in there.

Because?

So, I tried to?

I sanded them down in

between each pass 'cause I loved

the idea of collaborating

with the law of accidents.

So every time I sand, I'm losing somethi

that I put in there and

then I put something back

and I take it away and I

put it back and I take it away.

So, there'd be windows

through which the audience,

the viewer would feel that

they were being haunted.

- Oliver, let's forget about

the Russians, for now.

Come on.

I can't wait for you to see this.

- I've always felt that modern times

are lacking in terms of the?

What am I trying to say?

I am sure the work I've

been doing for all these years,

of building up all the

layers and burying them,

in order to excavate back

in order to reveal them,

in order to try and?

My version of signaling through the flam

in order to find that place

where the spirit meets the bone

in order to do the soul justice,

it seems like a form of

madness, but this is my attempt

to do the soul justice.

- Oliver.

It's perfect.

- I'm so glad you like it.

I knew that you would,

but I'm still really happy.

Congratulations, Oliver.

You have absolutely captured her spirit.

- Thank you.

- Congratulations.

- I wonder can you

hear the sound of that color?