Adrift (or a Week in …)

Sunday

The coast seems so far away now.

(1 Line)

Monday, 12 July – Routines

She overlooks a huddle of knick-knack vendors and street masseuses

Their children roam tirelessly along the beach
Blanketed by the piercing sun

Shrieks of glee drowned

The crashing of waves
She sweeps the balcony of room 203

The messes left behind leaves traces of the road

Of far away cities

Of washing up on a strange shore after days drifting

Weary

She is fond of the past six months spent working here

The resort, her duties

“Are you sure you had enough time to mourn?”

Sari smiles

Days flew by
The beach is still
(16 Lines)
Seventh Day Memorial

“My utmost condolences, Sari.”

“Be strong my dear.”

“And you, Novi, you mustn’t shed anymore tears.”

“It’s bad omen for the departed.”

“She wasn’t that old, wasn’t she?”

“I better be more cautious, we’re not that far apart you know.”

“Times surely have changed!”

“I thought it was only a disease meant for the rich!”

“Who’ll look after her daughter? She’ll be living alone now, won’t she?”
“This might spell trouble.”

Rest well mother

(11 Lines)
Tuesday, 13 July – The Tide Came in Last Night

She walks the coastline

A minefield of oddities

Shampoo sachets and sandals

Not a pair, but two lefts
Shells and shells, and shells and shells

This one’s flat and thin

Brown and spotty

She places it on the water

Riding the wave’s back
Bobbing up and down

How far will it travel?

Where will it end up?

Her feet firm to the sand

It’s her day-off

(14 Lines)
Getaway

Bambang is picking her up

His fragrance clashes with the sea
Anybody would tell you that Bambang takes good care of himself
And that Sari is one lucky girl

His motorbike cuts a faint trail along the beach

They’ve shared countless of rides to the waterfall
Everyone gathers there to escape the heat
A customary recreation

She feels for the pebbles underwater

The fall, in front of her

Like the crashing of waves

Falling water rumbles, deafens
But waves are adventurers
Travelling far and freely

Waterfalls are commuters

Unable to dissuade the pull of the Earth
A one-way ticket
To the base below

Everything settles
Falls into place

Laras splashes her from behind, Bambang laughs

She feels the weight of each drop

Will this be it?

(23 Lines)
Mrs Novi

Bambang had just left

She came barging in

“Who will help me prepare for the fair this year?"

She had never done it all alone before, not once

They always had one another.

For a long time, Sari knew

Her mother’s responsibilities would be hers someday

“That’s settled then!”

“I knew you would help me.”

But Mrs Novi wasn’t finished

“Listen Sari, people are starting to talk.”

“You live alone now, you can’t just bring in a man like that.”
“I know it’s Bambang, we all love him, we really do.”
“But people are talking!”
(14 Lines)
Wednesday, 14 July – Crash

Shards and a puddle

She knocked it off the table, an accident
The water washes over
A formation of worker ants

An insignificant catastrophe
In room 102

Sari wipes the floor

Carefully avoiding the fallen troopers
With tissue paper
The water seeping slowly

Can ants drown?

The mini bar was enjoyed quite thoroughly last night

She didn’t bring enough replacements
The main supply cabinet, over at the main building
She rode her bike over

The head housekeep was there

“Sari, did the manager tell you?”

“She might offer you a permanent contract next month!”
“The time to leave is now or never!”
“I’m kidding! I’m kidding! I know you love it here!”

102 overlooks the sea

The waves beguiling

Will I drown?
(23 Lines)
Laras

Her house is in front of Sari’s

She is tending to her chickens
Still wearing her uniform, bright blue
“Welcome to Indomaret, how can we help you?”

Sari sits on Laras’ porch

Four eggs in the tray, she picks one up
The brownish shell gleams
She rolls it gently, away from her

It stops just before falling

Over the ledge

“A permanent contract already?”

“It took me a year to get offered one!”
“And we all know how that went.”

“The resort is nice and everything.”

“But I just didn’t want to be stuck in one place.”

“What about you?”

“Are you gonna take it?”
(17 Lines)
Kneading
It all makes sense, the perfect timing
High school sweethearts, eight years strong
It’s just the obvious thing to do, isn’t it?
“Well, Sari?”

Mrs Novi’s eyes wide

Her fingers, lips, still

Sari nods, smiles

Mrs Novi kneads with passion

Shaping and forming the dough

“After you’re done with the resort,”

“You can finally start your little family!”

“How wonderful!”
(12 Lines)
Thursday, 15 July – Restocking

No shift today
Laras drags her along

“Welcome to Indomaret, how can we help you?”

She sits tight

Her eyes follow

“I guess I just can’t stay committed to anything.”

“It’s not even about keeping my options open,”

“I just can’t stay put.”

“As simple as that.”

“Tono! Where did the butter go again?”

“Look,”
“If you actually feel comfortable there,”
“Then why not go for it?”

“She told you to do what!”

A tide rises inside of me

(15 Lines)
If I Do Leave

The resort, the beach

What might be out there?

Will I fall in place?

Or will I drift away?

Which one’s more terrifying?

I don’t know

But I’ve been caught

Entranced by the open sea
(8 Lines)
Friday, 16 July – A Reminder

201, 202, 203

Trickling down, 204

Drops turn into a downpour in a matter of seconds

Screeching and howling, the wind
Waves, unrelenting

She rushes for the beach

A torrent from above

Her feet will not stop
The drops weightless

Crack

Snaps a branch, flying towards her

Barely missing, plants itself firm on the sand
Clouds parting, the sun peeks once more

Sari couldn’t help but laugh

I am alive.

(15 Lines)

Bambang

He had ask her

To come to the shop

Bigger than she remembers

Forklifting steel
Wires, beams, and poles

Metal scraping against another

Clangs and clinks
Engines whirring, muffled shouts

The floor manager

“Hey it’s Bambang’s girl!”

“Lookin’ to get your old job back, huh?”
“You just can’t be too far from him,”
“Can’t you?”

She used to work the register

Bambang works the floor

“He’ll be done soon.”

Just wait for him

(17 Lines)
The Walk Back

At the behest of friends and relatives,

Bambang urges her to marry.

Sari knew
What they expect of her
Sari knew
What the town wanted her to be

This is not all there is

I want to believe
There’s more
Just a step further

Though the sand is warm

And soft
And solid
Reliable

A thought penetrates her whole being

The hypnotizing allure of the sea
(16 Lines)
Saturday, 17 July – High Tide

The fair was joyful

Now high, the moon

Sari and Bambang
They walk the coastline
A minefield of oddities

The sea calm beside them

He looks at her
And she’s the sea
She’s a wave, parting the coast
The wind carrying

I don’t know how far I’ll go

Or even where I’m going

I feel the pull

The call to sea
Louder and louder
With each passing day

I won’t wait for everything

To just settle in place

There is a chance
Some far away shore
Where it all will make sense
And I would have grown

And I’ll be happy

(23 Lines)
Sari

I found footing at the resort

My feet planted, the beach cradling

I grew tired of the waterfall

The weight of it pinned me down
I ran in circles
The town runs in circles

I don’t want to live for someone else’s desires

I am not my mother, Mrs Novi

Though I cannot be as brave as Laras

I need to decide for myself

And Bambang
I love you truly

But I must take a step

I feel for the waves with my big toe

“My, my, look at the time! It’s Sunday already.”

(15 Lines)

(240 Total Lines)

 Adrift (or a Week in …) Poetics Blueprint

My folio is a narrative poem, adapted from a screenplay I wrote for a feature

film titled “Adrift”. The folio should be read chronologically from the beginning. The

theme of the folio is “Challenging Fate and Expectations”—which hones in on the ennui

of feeling powerless against the forces around you. I represented these forces as two

separate entities; one being something more intangible such as fate, and the other being

expectations of the people around you and the customs you share, which brought a

sociocultural aspect to the piece. I wanted to explore the interplay between these two

forces in the main character’s life, and look at how the forces can push the character to

develop as a human being.

The story is set around Sari, a 20 year-old girl who lives in a far-off coastal

town. I specifically wanted to frame the town in a way that it itself is the embodiment of

the forces Sari feels powerless against. From the locations around the town to the people

that inhabit it, I wanted to look at how Sari interacts with each of these elements that

seek to dictate how she lives. In the face of all these forces, Sari must finally stand up

for herself, or let the currents of life take her away.

This folio is mainly inspired by Albert Camus’ essay, “The Minotaur, or the Stop

in Oran”. This essay explores the writer’s experience during his time in the city of

Oran, Algeria. He recounts the various past times the inhabitants of Oran indulged in at

that time and how he felt that the walled city was built like a maze. Much like one

specific maze from antiquity, this maze too had its Minotaur, and that Minotaur was

boredom (165).

Camus compares the people of Oran with ancient travellers wandering through

the maze; they can spend their time getting their shoe shined, dancing, and watching

movies, but when the Minotaur gets a hold of them, it’s not letting go. Camus’
beautifully puts it as being devoured by boredom; and aside from those who are still

wandering, many have accepted being eaten (165). Sari, at the beginning of this folio,

was already consumed by several “Minotaurs”, but she refused to stay devoured. The

narrative of this folio is driven by the juxtaposition between Sari, those who are still

“wandering”, and those who have accepted the “Minotaurs”. The Minotaurs in this story

being customs and expectations of her environment, and, in a larger sense, fate.

The reason I addressed fate as a separate entity is because the recent and sudden

death of Sari’s mother is an important element in the story that can’t be explained

sociocultural forces. Though I decided not to make the story directly about grieving, that

narrative still runs strong in the background. However, fate and expectations are not

entirely separate, since the result of her mother’s death brought about various

expectations that the community put on her. She has been consumed by these forces and

her journey is to find a way out of it.

As for the characters in the story, Bambang and Laras represented the majority

of young people in town who are still “wandering”; they still see various opportunities

around town and are content with their life and their options. Mrs Novi, on the other

hand, represented the older generation who have mostly accepted “being eaten” and

lives in content with that thought. What separated Sari from other characters her age was

the death of her mother, and how her responsibilities suddenly fell to Sari; the Minotaurs

had found a short cut.

I used the locations in this folio as symbolic representations of Sari’s journey.

Locations that were more inland, the town (often represented by the people) and the

waterfall, were the embodiment of Sari’s discontentment with the rigidity and

predictability of idyllic domestic life. The beachside resort and the beach itself

represented where Sari was at the beginning of the folio, on the literal edge of the land;
an escape in sight, but her fear of the unknown is pinning herself to the ground. The sea,

images of the waves, and distant shores were representative of the world outside the

coastal town, the opportunities yet discovered.

The folio was mostly written from the perspective of an omnipotent third-

person narrator. To indicate lines that correspond to characters other than the narrator, I

created two conventions for this suite. I used italics for Sari’s own thoughts and

opinions. The use was pretty limited in the first half of the suite but it gradually

increases as the story progresses, especially in “If I do Leave” and “Sari”, giving a sense

of the power balance between the internal and external forces. The other convention is

the use of dialogue in quotation marks for other non-narrator characters apart from Sari.

I wanted the effect of hearing the dialogues as Sari have heard them.

In regards to the style of the poems in this folio, all of them are free-verse. I

wanted a sense of narrative unity for the whole folio, so I decided on a style that I was to

keep consistent. I took some liberties in the poem, “Restocking”, where I experimented

with the visual form of the poem. I did it in service of the character of Laras, as the

zigzagging placement of lines was inline with her character who couldn’t stay put.

Finally, my goal for this folio was to explore more of the world that I had written

in the form of a screenplay. I wanted to hone in further on the specificities of the

locations and the characters, trying to explain them in different ways to further my own

understanding of what I wrote. I think the process really helped me in deciding the

narrative elements and imageries that actually mattered and what did not work. This

folio will help me achieve the feeling of the actual film, as I envisioned the filmmaking

to be less narrative heavy and more poetic.

(Word Count: 1001)

 Work Cited

Camus, Albert. “The Minotaur, or the Stop in Oran.” The Myth of Sisyphus. New York:

Vintage International, 1991. Print.