The number 26 and the search for cig butts are really good choices, dramatically, as an opportunity for actors to repeat a key phrase, and for characterization/physicality (their search). This human scene seemed to me like a mix of Don DeLillo's "The Mystery at the Middle of Ordinary Life" and a more homespun, (anti-?)romantic Tom Waits song if he were from the midwest or lived in the tundra. The kind of drama one would like to see John Cassavetes direct and act with Gena Rowlands or Peter Falk.