At Sea, Staring Up

Finegan Kruckemeyer

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781925004021
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

At Sea, Staring Up is a richly poetic magical relationship drama that follows the journeys of five characters, all motivated by love, across three continents: Emma the Greek sails the seas alone so that her father will live; Noah searches for his wife who flew through a hole in the windscreen; Elise drives through the German countryside, trying to get her baby to sleep; Caleb swims oceans to prove his love for Sylvia; while Sylvia climbs waterfalls and jumps through time and space. Told in poetic language, Kruckemeyer creates a magical world that is very real.

Autumn

SCENE TWENTY-THREE

SYLVIA: Autumn is a time for travelling, where other seasons are not. In Autumn, things fly off trees, and float down streams, and waft, and roam.

In Winter all is frozen still. In Summer it’s too hot to move. Spring’s for new beginnings, and discovering where you’ve arrived, not where you’ll go. That’s for Autumn. In Autumn, the clever ones travel.

Each is seen in a state of motion: NOAH stands with thumb outstretched; CALEB does up a ludicrous, tight wetsuit; ELISE angrily packs a bag; SYLVIA wakes somewhere; EMMA steers her trawler and sings to herself.

EMMA: There’s nothing I don’t believe anymore

Since Sylvia Wist went climbing

Water doesn’t run down anymore

My ears are not for sound anymore

My face and my mouth will not frown anymore

Since Sylvia Wist went climbing

Explain away gravity, Sylvia

Make time go backwards, Sylvia

I’ve forgotten the answers, Sylvia

You’ve rewritten the answers, Sylvia

Since Sylvia Wist went climbing

I’ve lost all my faith in timing

Silence.

Sometimes we do not understand the songs we invent.

SCENE TWENTY-FOUR

ELISE angrily straps JACOB into his baby seat. A man is seen/ heard/ alluded to.

MATTHIAS: Also jetzt gehst du— [English: So now you’re going—]

ELISE: Ja, fuck you! Fuck you Matthias! I have never! I have never done a thing with him! I could have—a hundred times I could have! But fuck you Matthias, I didn’t.

MATTHIAS: Wo gehst du dann!? [English: So where are you going?]

ELISE: Is none of your business! I am driving! I am forever going driving—you have given me a son that never sleeps, and so together we are driving, always!

MATTHIAS: Lass ihm hier bleiben! [English: Leave him here!]

ELISE: No fuck you. You go back to your bed, to your sleep—Jacob comes with me.

She is in the car. Knocking at the window is heard.

Lass Mich in ruhe! [English: Leave me alone/in silence!]

She drives off.

SCENE TWENTY-FIVE

CALEB, dressed in the wetsuit, packs feverishly.

CALEB: I used to do so much, in my old life, my full life. ’Cause that’s what I thought happy lives had to be—full. Except I wasn’t—happy. And then suddenly. . . the fullness left. And it turns out happy lives are actually really simple.

Like, I went from forty-five associations: from tango, and lacrosse. . . outback survival, introduction to ice sculpture, guitar, piano, air cadets, blind cricket (that was bad). All this stuff. And then all simplified, to just a few things: to Gardening. And The Community. And Noah.

And Sylvia Wist. I’d just be lying in bed and there she was. This perfect woman who always turns up at the perfect time and just. . . is perfect. A perfect life where the simpler it got, the better it got.

And then Noah goes travelling!

NOAH is given a lift by ELISE. He sits and talks to her, inaudible.

He gets the idea he’s got to hitch across Europe and track down a disappeared dead woman, which is beautiful. But then here’s me—with a disappeared alive one! And I realise I should probably do the same.

Oh yes, my dear Sylvia—no more you visiting me, no more waiting! Now Caleb Prosser. . . is coming to you! Yes he is! And he’s not doing it in a normal way—oh no, he’s not! ’Cause Caleb Prosser does not. Do. Normal!

He is swimming to you!

Impossible, you say. [Beat.] And yes, that is true—England to Australia is truly impossible. But! What about: Fly to Cairns and then swim the last bit, to Innisfail? Slightly more possible. Very possible in fact! Seventy-five ks and what’s that? I’ve taken diving lessons before. I’m always at the pool. I did a charity swim when I was at Uni, to raise money for asthma stuff. [Beat.] It was a relay, but I did my bit. [Beat.] I did most of my bit and. . . Don’t even have asthma! Nothing in it for me, so. . . pure charity.

But now t...