I was surrounded by glaringly antiseptic, hospital white. It was the color of the hallways that stretched before me and branched off to the sides. I was moving rapidly forward, glancing down branches as I passed them. I kept trying to catch even a glimpse of my little daughter as I went.

It wasn't quite clear to me why she wasn't with me, where she had gone, whom she was with. I had some vague feeling that she'd been with me not too long ago, but when I tried to trace the impression down, my thoughts shifted, even as the gleaming corridors before me seemed to swim and change somewhat before my eyes, and I was unable to remember where we'd been or how we'd been separated.

I remembered her, though, of course. How could I not know my own daughter? She was tiny and blond, and unbelievably perfect, very familiar, and beyond a point picturing her wasn't necessary. Her identity was my daughter, and it was so ingrained mentally that I knew exactly what she looked like that it didn't matter if my mental picture wasn't quite in focus because even if it was fuzzy I knew that I knew what she looked like.

The strange thing, though, was her age. She was six or seven months, yet she walked and talked and looked as though she were six or seven years old. Something about my memory of her talking to me, running on ahead of me in these same white hallways, overlaid with the sense that she was a baby, nagged at the edges of my consciousness, but the oddity of it kept getting pushed and brushed aside by my need to find her.

I felt like I had to find her as quickly as possible because she wasn't quite safe without me, she'd run into something dangerous if I weren't with her. In fact, we'd likely both end up overpowered or out of control if we didn't get away from these halls entirely. The nature of the threat, like so much else that I'd have liked to pin down more clearly, was hazy and got lost as my thoughts took another corner.

We were together in these same white hallways, but she was holding my hand, telling me about something important that she'd done and smiling proudly up at me. She was just beautiful, and I was so glad to have her back. I tried to enjoy the moment as fully as possible because I had the feeling that I was about to lose her again at any second. It didn't matter how tightly I held her hand because I felt that when it happened she would either ghost away or suddenly not be there anymore, or else I would notice that I was someplace else and without her. My baby was with me again. I loved her. I wanted to stay in that moment for as long as possible.

Sometimes I'll see noticeably pregnant women, and want to look at them, talk to them, just because they're pregnant. I'll know, even as I do it, that it's going to hurt me, serve as a reminder that I should be where they are, start me dreaming about it again. But I can't ever pass up the chance to at least look, because even looking is better than nothing, even if it is a tainted happiness. And to a point the pain is part of the pleasure; it's all that I have of my child.