Hazia’s Reflections

I had been pondering about my assignment for Beth Yahp’s upcoming advance workshop. It’s due on Saturday. We have to submit a travel story under 1000 words, the trip could be one that we took recently or an imaginary one. After a few attempts, I found one that I could keep below 1000 words, hehe…

It had been 6 months and I never told this to a single soul. I was way too traumatised. It happened during our return from LCCT (from Sri Lanka). Maybe I was tired from the pack trip (we stayed at 3 different hotels in a week). Bear in mind that I was also under grave stress after receiving the news on Ad - that he had a stroke and had just woke up from a coma.

The sight of another passenger on the bus that night stayed with me for the next few months. Oh, I decided to combine the tale with my cystic acne incident for more zest, hehe…

Yesterday, the tiny cut on my cheek turned into a red pimple-like spot and came off, leaving a dot-sized hole. So, half of the pus came gushing out. The bump flattened significantly. Today, the doctor took out the remaining pus, dirty blood, nod and all. Hopefully, it’s gone for good, Insyaallah. Overall, it cost me around RM1000 and 7 visits, ok:p.

Going Home - 1st Cut

After five days of adventure, our flight touched down at LCCT at 7.30pm. Our annual sponsored staff holiday took place in the exotic Tear Drops of India this year. By the time our luggage arrived, it was almost dark. The four of us bid farewell to the rest of the group and wheeled our bags outside.

I happened to catch my reflection on a mirror at a cafe in front and saw the ugly giant zit on my right cheek. I was just trying not to think about it; I had had the cystic acne for a week already and it was not getting any smaller. Looking in the mirror had been a stressful experience indeed.

A man was standing in front of the Air Asia bus across the road. One could not miss him; he was waving his right hand and shouting frantically to call passengers to take the bus. We approached him and got our tickets. RM9 per person was a really good deal, if we shared a taxi, it would cost twice as much. We boarded the bus; it was almost full. There were only several empty seats at the back. It was late and we were too exhausted to wait for the next one. My colleague, Lisa, and I took the two right seats on the second last row of the bus while our two male colleagues sat behind us.

“Hey, man. The filter’s gone. It’s just holes,” We turned around to look at our colleagues at the back. One of the guys was looking at the round air-condition opening on top of his head; it was cold and he was unable to narrow the holes. “Let’s stuff some newspapers into them,” our other colleague suggested good-naturedly. He tore off a few pages from the newspaper he was reading and crumpled them into a few balls. They pushed those into the holes.

A petite woman in a stylish fur collared pink top and white jeans then walked onto the bus. Her hair was held up in a ponytail. There were two last empty seats on our right. She put her bag in the compartment on top and plopped down on the seat next to my colleague. I only got a glance of her face but it gave me the shock of my life.

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