The last pic seems somewhat...dissatisfied. Where he started with one key he now has the lot and he *still* don't seem happy. And the other guys have this "We've been going in circles!" kinda thing goin' on. Where did they go wrong? The second-last pic had a sense of urgency(they're running?) to it. Did the guy make the right decision in leaving the girl?

But what if the first four pics were in fact the end of the story? Perhaps by handing over the key he gives pause to reflect on the events that led up to this moment. She takes the key, they say their goodbyes and they part ways. The rest is what happened *before*! Staring down the street monolith is the begining. The long walk. He is going somewhere, made obvious by checking the map. But who is the guy with the keys? The adversarialy-positioned low angle suggests...well, an adversarial relationship between these guys. Or does the Scruffy guy have the edge, wearing his keys like a Smith & Wesson?

They share something: a need to have an itch scratched. And whose this third guy? Hired goon? Company man? I think it's all his fault the deal doesn't go through. He's the eyes of the Unseen Player. The Snitch. The Monkey in the Wrench. Why else would Scruffy hand off the keys so surreptitiously?

So it's a failure. In the end, the keys have no value. Dude holds them up like there are no locks left to open. No victory here. What does he tell his Lady?

Some cool comments there. Definitely different from the way I originally envisioned it, which is part of the point of asking these types of questions. The part that comes closest to spirit I envisioned is this part here...

He started with one key he now has the lot and he *still* don't seem happy. And the other guys have this "We've been going in circles!" kinda thing goin' on. Where did they go wrong? The second-last pic had a sense of urgency(they're running?) to it. Did the guy make the right decision in leaving the girl?

That sounds like my life in a nutshell. Maybe a lot of people's lives. These are exactly the sorts of issues that I meant to explore.

It's fascinating to see how many interpretations there are for the keys. But the keys are meant to represent a tool, not the goal. For a sense of what the goal might be, think about the title. It's called "The Sound of Water," even though there is no water ever in the frame, in fact the shots are really 'parched' looking, if you can call it that. Nor is there any ground ever in the frame, so you can imagine water wherever you like, and I thought where people might imagine it would be an interesting question, although nobody has mentioned it so maybe it isn't.

Your idea is really interesting about changing the order to place the 'breakup' sequence at the end ... that would definitely change the range of meanings suggested. It changes it from a story that stands on the knife-edge of victory or loss to one that stands at more of a distance, in contemplation (or trauma?) at the memory of the stroke of that knife, but it doesn't necessarily impose any more specific an interpretation of how successful was the quest than the original sequence. I like that.