Welcome to Somewhere Else

Dining

I woke up in a bed with water being poured onto my face: fortunately as a measure of care rather than of harm. I came to slowly, with initially blurred vision and impaired hearing. I was being shaken slightly back and forth and with each shake was coming piece-by-piece back to consciousness.

Hooked up to me was an apparatus that expanded and contracted, and I realized it appeared to be helping me breathe. When I finally was fully conscious again I noted 3 people in the room besides myself. Two were dressed in robes and one was wearing some form of apparel I had never seen before, like smooth foil of some extremely high quality metal, arranged into a thin but firm and cohesive suit that covered from neck to ankle. It was this one that had shaken me back awake.

She looked surprised to see me awaken. "Niik laak tik lam," she said. I looked at her trying to process what the heck she was trying to communicate. "Niik laak tik lam", she repeated.

I kept silent and she came closer. I said it back to her, wondering if maybe this was one of those phrases one repeats back or if by repeating it somehow it would make sense to me: "Niik laak tik lam". Nope, it didn't make any sense, but with that she pulled me up and continued on. "Niik zem tikte lakam, lekeim. Lekehala tikte vidreimk." More confusion ensued, and eventually after seeing that I clearly had no idea what was going on or what she was saying she motioned to the men in the robes to come closer and got up and turned around, walking over to them to whisper about something. She walked out of the room, but the men remained there waiting there, one of them watching me and the other watching a screen in the room that couldn't be viewed from my angle.

She came back pushing a tray over to my way: on it was a plate filled with the most diverse assortment of food I'd seen in weeks and a glass of purple liquid. Acknowledging I probably couldn't understand a word that was coming out of her mouth, she grabbed the glass and made a gesture for me to drink it, then placed it in my hand. I drank it and went to eat some of the food then realized there was no fork or spoon on the plate. There was a small plate off to the side with a clean, empty shell on it, alongside what looked like a snake rattle, and a thick stick with a knob at the top and some sort of button or lever on it. I had no clue what to do with anything besides the shell; I looked up and the lady looked at me as if I were an idiot. And sure enough, I rather was one in the current situation, or at least provided the appearance of one. Nevertheless, I was hungry, and I looked to my plate to decide where to start first.

On the plate was an assortment of what looked like 5 or 6 components. There was a circular amber vegetable with eight pod compartments in a formation resembling a honeycomb; it was in slices and placed on top of what looked to be dark meat of some sort; the meat had no bone attached, but was in one large piece, and with no knife in sight I decided that I'd save that one for later. The plate had a compartment in it that was deeper than the rest of it, similar to a lunch tray at a school. In this compartment was some sort of mix of spices and soup; it looked appetizing, however looked to be a complement to the rest of the meal rather than an item to itself. The remaining two compartments were where I decided to begin the meal: some sort of grain with a sauce poured over it, and a vegetable that looked like it was meant to be scooped out of its hull. I scooped it using the shell and went to eat and I could swear I saw the woman try to hold in a laugh as she watched me eat. The next bite I went for the grain first and then scooped out more of the vegetable and proceeded like this through about half of the vegetable before I stopped and looked at the meat, and looked up at the woman. How was I going to eat this?

The woman popped out of the room and I at least felt less pressure to impress as I went for the next portion of the meal. I grabbed the shell and poured the rather course soup/spice mixture over the rest of the grains and began eating them piece by piece. The woman returned with a plate of her own: coming over beside me, she took a seat and nonchalantly began eating the meal as essentially a demonstration on how to do it.

She took the rattle and smashed it in the spice/soup mixture, turning it from a course heterogeneous mixture into one homogeneous form. Taking her shell in hand she then poured the mixture over the grains, and made a gesture that I somehow recognized to mean: "spicy". Then she took the thick stick, the most confusing part of this array of utensils and clicked it open. It opened and resembled a handheld fan, and in this open, webbed bottom of the utensil she scooped the meat and vegetable. So this was the spoon.

Then she closed the stick just as she had opened it, and grabbing the knob on the top she turned it and twisted it before opening it again. From the bottom fell thick pieces of semi-ground, semi-chopped meat, much thicker than ground meat but not exactly the shape of a cut-up steak. Okay, so not a spoon. She threw the hull onto the small plate on the side and scooped the food into the fan, proceeding to place it on top of the grains. Then she scooped the mix into the shell and ate it: grain, meat, vegetable, and spice.

She caught my eyes right as she brought the food to her mouth and I quickly glanced away before realizing there was no hiding the fact that I had been watching, but the scene was most likely conducted for my benefit anyway. I mimicked her actions and proceeded to eat my meal using those same steps, and about one bite in the spice hit. Somehow, the mashing of the rattle inside the mixture changed its taste significantly from before mashing it, essentially activating any spice available, and brought this to some of the spiciest food I had ever eaten. I went to jump up from where I was before one of the men, who I hadn't realized had ended up close to me by this point, pushed me back down onto the bed. I ended up being thankful for that when I realized the possibility of disconnecting myself from potentially the only thing keeping me breathing. He looked at me with a stern look as to say "watch out". The woman poured me some more purple water from some sort of hollowed out, gourd-like container and I drank it then proceeded through the rest of the meal. After finishing my last bites I began to grow tired, and the lights turned back out in the area, and with that, I fell back asleep.