Mine will be about a story of a family consisting of dad, mom, boy and dog. Everyone is doing some counting for different reasons and it all happen in a day.
Dad keeps looking at his watch and reading a newspaper while counting his past achievements/failures/aspirations. Mom is looking into a mirror and photos on the dressing table counting her years/memories. Boy is counting everything in the house, including his parent's eyes, nose, etc. Dog is sleeping/lazing around seemingly looking at the clock waiting for its meal& play times.
All this happen on day when the possessions in the house are individually tagged by an officer handling the family's bankruptcy.
The story ends when the officer left the house. It is implied that the family may be dysfunctional. The tense atmosphere loosens precisely when the officer left the house. It is the point in time when everybody stops counting. The ending communicates some kind of hope represented by the boy receiving a toy figure of a fictional character 'Numero' from dad at their new neighbourhood.
Something like that.
Hey Budi, I like that story arch. Sounds really good. What is actually the "role" of the toy figure? Wouldnt it be "stronger" to have them end counting, then, to have a new house and you can hear the counting again, from the outside of the house, but you dont know who is counting. Then you see Dad as he just finished counting the boxes from the house moving as he says something like: "and now lets unpack the boxes and start all over again" something like that... hm just a thought. Nice. Looking forward to see some visuals... TITUS
ReplyDeleteThanks Ti.
ReplyDeleteThe toy figure actually represents the new start you're talking about. It's a return to innocence, to a dominance of the boy's POV.
The idea here is the act of 'counting' represent the different world views of each character. In this financial crisis, I'd like to suggest that we regain a fresh & a more hopeful perspective represented by the boy's POV.
There are so much disappointments, mistakes, blame game and the entire atmosphere is very heavy (dad and mom). So there are consequences and hard decisions (the house moving + property loss). But hope will rebuild whatever that is lost.
As for dad talking in the end, I'd like to stick to our self-imposed rule of not having words in the story :)
Best,
Budi
Yes you are right (about Dad) and I really dig your story. Great, looking forward to it!!!
ReplyDeleteTi