Kobus Moolman

LIST OF SHOTS (I)

Wide angle.

#1.
Broad daylight.
Back yard with timber
and spider webs.

#2.
She walks from
left to right and
exits behind a pile of car tyres.

#3.
Hold. Five seconds.

#4.
Her shadow
on the white winter grass
unpinning her long hair.

#5.
Then same but
with a three-legged dog
sniffing her crutch.

#6.
He with a spade

#7.
digging a hole
in the black earth.

#8.
Her shadow watches.
Drinks straight from the bottle.

#9.
He from behind
in the hole
up to his knees.

#10.
He from behind
up to his waist.

#11.
She fetches something

#12.
wrapped in newspaper

#13.
from a place
in the shape of a doll.

#14.
He with the hole
now over his head.

#15.
She says something
to him
but there is no sound.

#16.
She pulls
him out.

#17.
He tosses the spade in.

#18.
She drops something

#19.
wrapped in old newspaper

#20.
into the hole
shaped like a doll.

#21.
His shadow
kicks the three-legged dog
away.

#22.
Her shadow
does not know what to do
next.

#23.
Their hands scratch
the inside-out earth
back to where it came from.

#24.
Continue

#25.
as darkness falls
heavily about their shoulders.

#26.
Night.

#27.
Black heap
where the hole was.

#28.
She

#29.
with a bucket of water

#30.
from the bottom of the ocean
where the light
only has blackness in it.

Cut.

* * *

LIST OF SHOTS (II)

Close-up. (Version 1: Tracking.)

#i.
Subtitled: The start.

At the base of the spine.
Snake-like. No other description.
After 40 years
it is still sensitive to touch.

#ii.
Right leg, below the knee,
vertical, 10cms with
6 cross-stitches. To keep him
on the straight and narrow.

#iii.
Right foot, outside ankle,
crescent-moon, approximately 12cms,
faded stitches, impossible to count.
In order to stop him
going over.

#iv.
Subtitled: The practice.

Right wrist, circular, jagged,
4cms with no stitches.
Windows are actually meant
for looking through.

#v.
Left foot, outside ankle,
crescent-moon, approximately 12cms,
with 8 cross-stitches.
Because this one was going
the same way as the other.

#vi.
Same foot, top of ankle,
vertical, 10cms with
6 cross-stitches. Because
he had to be pulled back
with force.

#vii.
Same again, inside ankle,
1.5cms, no stitches. Just
a nick from an electric saw with
rotating blade used to remove
old plaster cast.

#viii.
Subtitled: The scare.

Back of the neck, from
just below the shoulders to
the top of the spine, straight
as a ruler, 15cms with 10 cross-stitches.
In order to insert a silicone shunt.
In order to prevent him losing
the rest of his feelings.

#ix.
Right hand, palm and
fingers, calluses
and corns, various,

#x.
due largely
to walking

#xi.
on uneven air.

#xii.
Everything else
comes and goes.

* * *

LIST OF SHOTS (III)

Close-up. (Version 2: Still.)

#1.
The fine down
of sleep
above her top lip.

#2.
The quiet space
where his head
fits

#3.
in-between her breasts.

#4.
Her belly stretched
across a miracle.

#5.
The round stillness

#6.
where all of his hunger
used to be.

#7.
Hope
and more of it
in handfuls.

Fade extra slowly.

Kobus Moolman is a South African poet and playwright, who teaches Creative Writing at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. His poetry collections includes Time like Stone(2001), Feet of the Sky (2003), Separating the Seas (2007) and Light and After (2010). His play, "Full Circle", won the Performing Arts Network of South Africa Festival of New Writing award. "Soldier Boy" from his collection of radio plays, Blind Voices (2007) was broadcast by the BBC and the SABC. He is editor of Tilling the Hard Soil: Poetry, Prose and Art by South African Writers with Disabilities.