Delusion

Stream of consciousness moments after waking this afternoon:

She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life.  We fell in love and took her home.  Two days later Charlotte left to run errands and I had the baby all to myself for the first time.  I carried her everywhere with me around the house.  We were at my house, but it was the old house on Folkstone, where I lived with my mom when I was a teenager.  I suddenly caught myself without the baby.  I panicked.  Where is she? Oh god where is she?  I walked back into the living room, there she was, on the floor, laughing.  Jesus christ, relief.  I walk with her back to the kitchen and continue house things.  Later, I lose track of her again.  Oh jesus, where is she where is she.  I run into the living room and she's on the couch, between the cushions, face down.  I run over and pick her up.  She's alive but her lips are blue.  I cry out and hold her.  I blow air over her face.  She's breathing, she smiles at me, the blue disappears from her face.  Again and again, I keep losing her, I don't know why.  I don't remember setting her down at any time, I just suddenly find myself without her.  Then, I lose her again.  I can't find her right away.  I search the living room.  The cushions, the floor.  No baby.  I go back into the kitchen and look around for her.  I don't see her anywhere.  On hands and knees, I scan the entire floor of both rooms.  I check the couch again.  I look at the bench in the kitchen, I look high and low.  I check the shelves between the books.  Anywhere a baby could conceivably fit.  I grow more and more desperate and panicked.  I don't remember her leaving my arms.  I get on hands and knees again. I search the edge of each room.  I look under the dishwasher and my heart jumps.  I think I see something underneath, a bundle.  I reach in and pull out an old bundle of socks.  Fuck.  I look under the oven.  Nothing there.  My face slides against the tile as I move my body along every shelf, searching the 3 inch space underneath.  I go back to the living room and throw the cushions everywhere, searching fruitlessly.  I cry out, horrified.  News articles flash through my brain of children left outside and stolen, or forgotten in hot cars, or left on their own in kitchens only to have something fall on them.  What horrible parents, what forgetful, terrible, awful parents.  I'm a horrible, awful, forgetful parent.  Back to the kitchen.  On hands and knees again.  My hand slides into every dark corner, every forgotten space.  Nothing.  I stand up and hear a faint crying.  Faint enough to wonder if I really heard it at all.  I can't pinpoint where it was.  I cry out her name and run back into the living room.  I scan the floor for anything that might have fallen.  Anything that might be heavy enough to have fallen on her and silenced her and taken her from me.  My eyes are flashing everywhere.  I can't think, can't feel.  Nothing but desperation, panic, failure.  Heather walks into the kitchen and I go to her, screaming to her, crying out I cant find my baby i can't find my baby.  She tells me it will turn up.  I can't believe she is so nonchalant.  Heather, I lost her, I can't find her.  She picks up her keys to leave and points to the other side of the room.  She's over there.  I shift my head so fast my eyes spin in their sockets.  I look at where I think she's pointing and see nothing.  Where, fucking where.  She points again and I see that she's pointing at the side of my head, near my right temple, but I only see the height of her finger with my peripheral vision.  I see that she is pointing at about the height of the bookshelves across the room.  Your baby is right there, she says, still pointing.  Call your wife and she will help you.  Then she leaves without another word.  I sprint across the room and books fly across the kitchen.  I empty the shelves of cookbooks, plants, pictures.  No baby.  I can't spare the few seconds to make a phone call, I have to keep searching.  I know she's here somewhere.  How could she not be?  I cry.  She left me, she left me!  I get on hands and knees and search the rooms for the 5th or 6th time, whos counting.  A car arrives in the carport.  I'm expecting Colin and Stephanie.  They'll know what to do.  They'll know what to do.  I open the door to the carport from the kitchen.  Bonnie and Uncle Winston are there.  I meekly, weakly mumble I can't find my baby I can't find my baby.  They can see the pain on my twisted, contorted face.  I cant find her please help me.  I push past them, excuse me i'm sorry it's good to see you but i can't.  Colin and Stephanie are in the carport.  Colin is in the drivers seat.  Stephanie is pushing the car into the carport while Colin drives.  The car is dead for some reason.  I can't find my baby, I can't find my baby.  Please help me.  I can barely push out the words at all.  I'm choking, sobbing, desperate.  Stephanie rolls her eyes at me and doesn't think I see but I do.  Why are they so slow why are they not helping me.  I wake up.  I don't have a baby.  I am alone and I have no children.  It takes me several seconds to convince myself that I have no baby.