NIGHT 'VISION'

     My heart was heavy when I received the letter for my new job posting to a remote fishing village near the mouth of the Johor river. From the main town, the only access road was a muddy jungle track which passed through a number of Felda oil palm estates. My father requested the help of a Health Ministry jeep to give me a lift to the village on one of their medical rounds.

     The smell of salted fish and anchovies drying under the hot sun greeted us as the vehicle entered the village. The jeep stopped at a clinic for the medical personnel's first visit and I talked to a nurse who said that her aunt could rent me a room.

     The driver was kind enough to send me to my new accommodation, which was a big village house right on the beach. I grew up in a town and so this was a totally new experience for me. My room faced the sea and my head felt dizzy with the continuous sea breeze. I found out that the electricity was powered only until 7 p.m. What was I going to do after 7 p.m. with no television or light to read a book, and no fan to cool the stuffy night air?

     On the first night, I couldn't sleep. All windows were closed tightly because the strong sea breeze rattled the old wooden window panes throughout the night. The silence of the darkness, the waves beating on the beach, the sound of night birds, bats and crickets, the eerie howling of the bamboo trees... they all made the night seem long. I couldn't wait for morning to come.

     The day started early in this village because a majority of its people worked in an oil palm estate nearby. I could hear their voices as they cycled or walked to work from around 5 a.m. After a while, I got used to the surroundings and was more familiar with the sounds and darkness at night. At least I could sleep.

   One night, I heard someone calling my landlady. It was a woman's voice, loud and clear, repeatedly calling my landlady's name. I waited for her to wake up but there was only silence. Nobody else in the house responded to the caller. I thought it was already early morning and maybe it was one of the estate workers who wanted to borrow something from my landlady. So I lit the candle and walked out into the living room.

     As we all know, a typical village house's living room has long windows all around it. These usually stayed closed until it was bright outside. But as I walked to the living room, I saw that all the windows were open. An old woman, in a white dress and her white hair tied in a bun, was standing at one of the windows, her arms resting on the sill, looking outside into the darkness.

     It was a very clear vision, although only by candlelight. I stood still and asked her, "Who are you?" I don't know why I did not feel scared. She remained where she was, so I asked again, "Who's there? Who are you?" Slowly she moved from the window, turned and faced me, and started coming towards me.

     I stretched my arm, holding the candle towards her to see her better. To my horror, she had no face and no legs below the knees. I felt a shiver down my spine. I could not move. She stood facing me and seemed to be observing me intently. She stopped about four steps away and sat down on a sofa, still facing me . She kept on looking at me and I just stared back at her. All this happened in a space of five minutes. Slowly I realised 'what' I had just met. I began to notice the strangeness of her form but she did not harm me. She just sat at the sofa.

     I walked slowly backward to my room, reciting holy prayers, and trembling with fear. I looked at my watch and when I saw that it was only 2 a.m., I realised the calls for my landlady were only meant for my ears, as the others in the house did not hear anything.

     The next morning, I told my landlady what had happened. She simply said that it was an old house that had been around for a few generations. Since I was a 'newcomer', perhaps 'former residents' had wanted to know me better.

     That was the only time something like that happened in the three years I lived there. 

#SAMPLE ESSAY THAT HAD BEEN GIVEN BY TEACHER ROZANA.