Rosa-Alethea gets sick during her first week in Egypt. It gets so bad that Horace takes her to a hospital (a private one). They’re not sure if she’s suffering from a side-effect of the pills she took (for Cholera and Malaria) or if she simply “drank the water”. While in the hospital she hallucinates, but perhaps it was more of a dream based on what she had just learned. She saw herself in front of a bathroom sink. It was back in Texas because she heard country music in the background. She was staring at her hands and noticed that in her right hand she had a razor blade and in her left hand she was holding a pair of large teeth. She looked up at herself in the bathroom mirror and was shocked to see blood dripping from her mouth. Through the mirror she saw Florence suddenly rush in and was screaming and crying out
“Help. Oh my heavens. Daddy! Daddy! Mother! What have you done?”
The father comes rushing in and carries her out of the bathroom. As she watches him take her away and Florence following, the perspective of the dream/vision shifts at this point. Rosa-Alethea is no longer within the body (or mind) of Florence’s mother. She stares back at her hands to see them clean (without knife or teeth). This is when she wakes up and finds herself in the hospital bed.
…
She woke up from jet lag at 2 AM. Famished, she put on her clothes, grabbed Horace’s wallet and snuck out of the apartment. She stepped into the elevator and pressed a button with the letter G on it. As the car started to descend, the ceiling fan kicked in and began whirring. It grew louder and louder until she heard the sound of a microphone switch on. All of a sudden the elevator car was filled with the voice of Sheikh Ahmed reciting a verse from the Quran. She groaned as the elevator slowly went down. Then she remembered where she was. Every decision and each step she took all came back to her in an instant. She felt her stomach shiver and she grew lightheaded. As she reached for the wall, it started to move and she was nearly thrown to the ground. She caught herself and realized the elevator had no door. “Where the hell am I?” she said to herself. The elevator stopped about six inches below the first flow. As she pushed on the door handle she could hear it srape against the floor loudly. When she stepped out into the hallway, she could see a man sleeping in a chair against the wall. She slowly crept past him and stepped out into the street.
The steet felt like a circus. The street lamps felt like stage lights under the test. Her eyes burned as she stared up at them. The car horns nagged and neighed at her with never-ending nerves as a result of their driver’s whip like hands.