FADE IN.
Act 1
EXT. SWIMMING POOL - DAY
A few SOULS. PETER swims leisurely.
PETER (V.O.): When I swim frog style in silence, my calm mind recalls many information eg Bertrand Russell got a Nobel Prize in Literature.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): I studied the texts he wrote in English to understand the philosophical substance, rather than appreciating his literary style.
Peter arrives at one side of the pool wall.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Philosophy means the love of wisdom, investigating eg the nature of logic, knowledge, ethics, politics, religion, aesthetics etc.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Popular literature themes are: (1) love eg Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, (2) good and evil eg Dickens' A Christmas Carol, (3) coming of age eg Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, (4) power and corruption eg Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, (5) survival eg Dickens' Oliver Twist, (6) individual and society eg Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, (7) war eg Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms and (8) aging eg Hemingway's The Old Man & The Sea.
Peter arrives at another side of the pool wall.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): I've read all these works, among others.
Peter continues to swim.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd):Now, I'm recalling that Ernest Hemingway got a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954, at the age of 55. The Nobel Prizes are in Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics and Medicine only.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Now, I'm forming an opinion: While the Nobel Prize recognizes the nature of scientific subject matters of Chemistry, Physics and Medicine, but in non-scientific subject matters of Literature and Peace, it recognizes the form of communication rather than the substance.
Peter takes a breathe out of the water.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): But I prefer understanding that nature of all subject matters than appreciating the form of their presentation. Thus, between Philosophy and English Literature, I prefer Philosophy. I think the "philosophical" issues raised in English Literature are so implicit that I don't understand what they want to say and that can't satisfy my quest for wisdom.
Act 2
EXT. SWIMMING POOL - CONTINUOUS
Peter rests near a pool Jacuzzi.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): When Hong Kong was a British colony, there's the emphasis to pick up the English language proficiency to rise above the lower and working classes.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): The medium of instruction in schools above the primary level was generally in English. I began writing little poems in English in F.1 and I scored 98/100 marks in the English Literature exam that year.
Smiling.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): In my matriculation years, I was passionate about English Literature and learned about the concept of stream of consciousness.
FLASHBACK
INT. CLASSROOM - DAY (1972-1973)
A book in hand, a female TEACHER (20s) is teaching around 10 STUDENTS including Peter (18).
TEACHER: William James originates the expression: stream of consciousness.
PETER (V.O.): Something new. What's that?
TEACHER: In literature, it's a method of narration that describes happenings in the flow of thoughts in the minds of the characters. It's nothing joined, like a river or stream of thoughts that flows.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): I believe I can understand that, as I'm feeling my stream of consciousness now - I'm listening to you (the outer reality) and I'm talking to myself (the inner reality) simultaneously.
TEACHER: The style of writing is marked by the sudden rise of thoughts and lack of punctuation. James Joyce employs the narrative mode to shed light on the plot in his novel Ulysses, which describes a day in the life of the hero in the work.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): If I do my English Literature assignment employing the stream of consciousness style - leaving puzzles to others over what I meant - would you or public examiners accept that?
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): I prefer Hemingway's simplicity style. His short declarative sentences build on each other, as events build to create a sense of the whole. He also uses the cinematic technique to cut quickly from one scene to the next.
Reflecting.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Hemingway intentionally omits something to allow the reader to fill in the gap, creating an interactive 3-dimensional work.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Hemingway also likes to use the conjunction "and" rather than a comma to convey immediacy.
END FLASHBACK
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): His writing style has an impact on mine. Then, I even thought to become an author and hoped to read English Literature in university.
Peter looks up to the sky.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): But it turned out that I did relatively better in exams in Chinese Literature than in English Literature. I still applied to read English Literature and was rejected outright.
Having taken a deep breathe, Peter swims again.
Act 3
EXT. SWIMMING POOL - CONTINUOUS
Raining.
PETER (V.O.)(Cont'd): I love to swim in the rain, the heavier the better. I can feel and connect the nice difference above and under the pool water.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.)(Cont'd): The consciousness metaphor is like memories under the water and thoughts about it. Between Philosophy and English Literature, I become a human agent interfacing the two ie philosophical issues of Literature with the literary issues of Philosophy.
Reflecting.
PETER (V.O.)(Cont'd): In Literature, the implicit may strengthen the literary messages. But in Philosophy, the non-explicit may weaken the thesis.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Life begins with the stream of consciousness and ends when the stream runs dry.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Having learnt from those before me, I'm still developing the substance of my works, presenting it in my own style, at an old age.
Pausing.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): I believe my screenplay format creating gaps in my stream of consciousness should enhance the level of explanation of my substantive thesis.
Against the flow of water, Peter swims towards an artificial waterfall.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): I'm trying something new and practical, as my literary work, whether on philosophical or not can become an audio-visual work without any need of adaptation.
The rain is dying down.
PETER (V.O.) (Cont'd): Most definitely, I'd continue to share my wisdom before my consciousness ends.
Reaching the other side of the pool wall, Peter gets off the pool.
FADE OUT.
THE END
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