 Gould allegedly is collecting the observations of average citizens to incorporate into his oral history of the world, fragments of which he has given to various people for safekeeping.Mitchell meets him in a coffee shop and initially is fascinated by the colorful character.However, with the passage of time, as Gould becomes irritatingly intrusive and demanding, disrupting the ordinary life Mitchell shares with his photographer wife and their two daughters, the journalist begins to question if the elderly man's 9 million-word opus actually exists or is merely a figment of his imagination.