the ventilator – hawker

I distinctly remember this happening around the time that I was in the bunker (whether before or after, I can’t remember at this point – I think it occurred after, which is why I’ve posted this after, but I can’t say for sure; this might have also happened directly after I was in the elevator, and transferred to the truck that I was in, in an earlier hallucination), and after I had been on the airplane.

At some point in my whole treatment for covid experience, in my mind, I was finally free. I was no longer being tied down, treated, or otherwise restricted because I had covid, I found myself being released from where ever I was (I can’t remember exactly what it was – it was either back of a plane, a truck, or even being freed from the bunker (although it wasn’t during the actual experience in the bunker) – being freed from the bunker seems the most right to me of everything, as I try to remember this whole hallucination). However, instead of being in Michigan, or in Washington, where the bunker was, I was in Singapore – the country in southeast Asia where I was born.

After I had come to, I was in a delivery area for a hawker center. Around me was different dry goods, and I had a bag of rice with me. My eldest cousin, Andrew, was there. He told me that the rice that I had was a special rice – we were going to celebrate – all of my family had gathered (everyone on my maternal side is still in Singapore) and we were going to celebrate the fact that I was still alive, that I had recovered, and that I was able to reunite with them. I was overjoyed – prior to the pandemic, my family and I were planning on returning to Singapore for a few weeks to see all of my family; we try to visit every two or so years, and the last time we were able to visit was two years prior. It would be great to be able to see everyone again, especially after the ordeal that I had been through.

We moved from the delivery area to a large, open air, hawker center (like the one pictured, but much larger – there were lots of stalls lined up on both sides, with large tables in the center). The hawker center itself was laid out in different sections, with the different sections primarily having similar food to one another. All of the food there was the type of food that you would see across southeast Asia, not just what you would find a normal hawker center in Singapore. At this point it was nighttime.

One of the stands that I remember seeing was cooking and selling seafood – crab and squid. There were various small birds across the hawker center, that would grab whatever food they could find on the floor. At this point, for some reason, I was no longer with Andrew, but I was going around the hawker center on my own. I was looking for a particular stand, or someone that sold a particular food – fried quail; but no matter how hard I searched for it, I couldn’t find it. Sadly, this hallucination ended there.