Mana Madu?
YZ Chin

Audio

Visual

Night.

Loud clacking on tar.

Madu:
“Spread out! Don't follow me!”

One hand holding up bunches of a purple dress, running feet in heels, tar road.

Loud clacking abruptly turns into subdued squishing sounds of flesh sinking into grass and soil.

Running feet abruptly sidestepping from tar road onto the beginnings of a river bank.

Rustling of grass, panting.

Heels coming off of stumbling feet.

Rustling of fabric, different panting.

Cut to entryway of a nondescript building, where volunteers in colour-coordinated outfits (not uniforms) herd a group of evening dresses from within the well-lit foyer into the gloom of evening.

Rustling of grass, different panting.

Cut to a different pair of heels coming off of running feet.

Rustling of fabric, different panting.

Cut to an evening gown being forcibly torn off a shoulder.

Rustling of grass, different panting.

Cut to bare feet cutting.

Rustling of fabric, different panting.

Cut to previous evening gown being completely torn off, revealing an upper body.

Rustling of grass, different panting.

Cut to a river lit up by moonlight.

Rustling of fabric, different panting.

Cut to discarded heels,
suddenly obscured by an evening gown dropped from above. Pan up to bare legs and buttocks.

Rustling of grass, different panting.

Pan to moonlit river.

Sound of spitting.

Cut to volunteer spitting on the ground in disgust.

Sound of splashing.

Cut to a shadow leaping off the bank into the river.

Sound of spitting.

Cut to volunteer being spat in the face.

Sound of splashing.

Cut to two more shadows throwing themselves into the river.

Volunteer:
“Spread out! Find the ones who escaped!”

Cut to volunteer A picking up a stout branch from the ground.

Madu:
“Spread out! Or they'll find us!”

Cut to Madu swimming backwards while gesturing wildly for Mawar and Umar to keep their distance.

In the distance, the call for Azan prayers transmitting through the air from the nearest masjid.

Cut to Umar in his room, praying on his prayer mat.

Shears snipping.

Cut to volunteer A going into his garden.

Brush pulling through hair.

Cut to Umar brushing a wig in his room.

Shears snipping.

Cut to volunteer A pruning a tree.

Brush pulling through hair.

Cut to young Umar, grinning wickedly, cutting off the hair on a doll while his sister bawls beside him.

Cut to a wig floating on moonlit water.

Sounds of splashing and spitting intermingled.

Cut to Umar and Mawar climbing out of the river onto the bank, Umar almost naked, Mawar with evening wear on.

Umar:
“Madu! Mana Madu?”

Umar's face, distressed.

Mawar:
“She swam away from us.”

The back of Mawar's head; long wet hair.

Cut to a brightly hued wig floating on sunlit water.

Rustling of fabric and grass.

Cut to one hand holding up bunches of a purple dress. Pan out to reveal child of indeterminate sex discovering purple dress and dragging it through the grass.

Blue skies.

Rustling of fabric, panting.

“Sayang, oh, sayang!”

Cut to Umar kissing and undressing his wife in a sunlit room.

Newscaster:
“A transsexual beauty pageant being held at a resort near here was broken up by the Kelantan Islamic Religious Affairs Department.
Its chief assistant director Abdul Aziz Mohd Nor said the group, in their 20s and 30s, was detained at about 10pm on Friday while posing in woman's dresses.
“Three of them managed to get away by diving into a nearby river...”

Cut to cutting of hair. Pan out to reveal Umar's wife trimming her ends before the television.

Umar's wife's hair drops in clumps onto newspaper spread out on the floor. Pan in to reveal a news article beginning with “A transsexual beauty pageant being held at a resort near here was broken up...”

Shears snipping, faint.

Falling hair hits a small mound of collected hair on the newspaper.

Umar's wife:
“Abang, where are you going?”

Cut to a brightly hued wig floating on sunlit water.

Shears snipping, loud.

Cut to Umar bursting out of his front door.
Pan to reveal his neighbour, volunteer A, pruning branches in his garden.

Rustle of grass, panting.

Cut to Umar running through grass.

Rustle of fabric, panting.

Umar taking off his shirt; his upper body.

Sound of spitting.

Umar jumping into the river, one hand still holding onto his shirt.

Sound of splashing.

Umar swimming against the current, spitting out mouthfuls of water as he advances.

Sound of spitting.

Umar climbing half out of the water onto the bank, where Madu's naked upper body lies sprawled.

Sound of splashing.

Close-up of Umar's face, tears, snot, mouthing the words “Sayang, oh, sayang!”

Shears snipping in a regular beat, each snip a second apart, as in a clock ticking.

Cut to Umar's wife at the window, watching a pruned branch falling through the air.

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

Snip

     Snip

            Snip
                   Snip
                       Snip

Cut to Umar, no longer crying, wiping thick makeup off Madu's face with his soaked shirt.

Umar, turning Madu's face to the left,

to the right,

wiping off one last smudge of eyeliner.

One hand holding bunches of the dirty shirt,

plunging into the river,

another hand joining the first in the water

scrubbing the dirty shirt back

and forth

against itself.

Shirt being raised out of the water,

dripping,

being twisted to let water

drip out of it.

Umar struggling

to put the shirt

on Madu's body.

Cut to a brightly hued wig floating on sunlit water.

Pan out to reveal Umar

holding a stout branch

reaching out to draw the wig in toward shore.

Cut to Umar on the shore, dripping wet,

digging a hole near the roots of a tree,

the wet wig lying beside the gradually enlarged hole.

Cut to sunlit water, ripples forming where the wig used to float.

A hip-

po-

po-

ta-
mus

rising out of the

water.