Hazia’s Reflections

When a course participant asked Beth Yahp about her nationality, she gave an interesting reply. She belonged to the Republic of Imagination, she wasn’t limited to a specific country only. LOL!

She also introduced a versatile Point of View (POV) that we could use - Omniscience. According to wikipedia.com, omniscience is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc.

An example is the narrator can go into someone’s mind and know what he thinks, and then get out and go into another person’s mind. I didn’t really get it at first. However, she sent us on a mini field trip and my group chose the striking orange hotel nearby. There’s something about me and hotels:) The other groups chose a police station and a cinema.

We weren’t allowed to speak to each other, so we had to use sign language. We were also not allowed to write, everything was put to memory.

The hotel looked so dodgy from the outside, as if it was used for ‘funny’ activities. We were surprised to see how neat and presentable it was inside. The furnishing was also very tasteful for a one-star hotel.

To avoid similarity with my other group members, I decided to write the experience from an object POV, rather than the receptionist. I chose ‘the walls’. We were given 5 minutes to write it down.

When Beth heard me read it, she said that was an omniscience POV. The walls could see and hear everything throughout the 3 floors of the hotel. She would look at walls differently now, hehe… I can actually utilise this for my hotel stories. A participant said it was spooky. LOL!

Voice of the Walls - 1st Cut

The door opened. A group of four women stepped in. The receptionist greeted them, "Good morning, welcome to N hotel." The oldest lady with wavy hair stood at the counter and talked to the receptionist while another two sat down on the brown sofa in front of me. The lady in pink with the ponytail leaned against me and looked up the ceiling. Then she stared at me. "Nice wallpaper, English flowers against peach background," she mumbled. "Very classy." I smiled, feeling so proud. Of course she could not see my lips curving or hear my voice.

The lift arrived. She signaled to the other 3 women. They stepped in and got off on the third floor. They pointed to my wallpaper and signaled to each other. Then they pointed to the peach mozaic tiles on the floor. Perhaps they were deaf and dumb. But their sign language did not seem as such. Also, they giggled from time to time. I was puzzled as to what it was that amused them so much.

They walked along the narrow corridor and looked at the doors of the rooms, again pointing to each other. They noticed that the door of room 601 was open. They took a peek and giggled. Strange bunch of people, aren’t they?

The group stopped in front of room 605. Yes, they could hear Puan Aminah yelling to Encik Hussin too. I felt like my ears were going to explode. Doesn’t that woman ever get tired. I wonder when the couple would be checking out.

They heard voices from the other end. One of the ladies pointed to the source and indicated that they should leave. Perhaps they thought that the Housekeeping staff was nearby. It was as if they were afraid of getting caught. But why?

(continue)