Even In Dreams

In the dream, I was rushed.  Hurrying through traffic and a mob of children outside the school, I pushed and shoved to get where I needed to be on time. 

But I was on the wrong side of the school. 

Elementary-aged children were stacked like rows of corn around every door, and it was all I could do not to scream at their stick-in-the-mud-ness.  Move!  I wanted to yell at them.  And probably, I did yell, but in the muffled air of the dream, my voice was achingly impotent. 

Finally, I was inside.  Searching through classrooms of the same immobile children, I looked for my daughter.

There -- in a large room housing several classes of kids.  She sat in a circle on the floor, and even though I couldn't see her, I knew she was there.  A boy's voice, scattered and far away, called, Mia, there's your mom!  Suddenly, a brown-haired head turned, and my daughter smiled at me.  Strangely, she didn't get up.  I picked my way across the room, careful not to step on her classmates' legs and hands, but impatient to be at her side. 

As I sat down beside her, she was telling me about her new friend; the little blonde girl was sitting next to her.  I couldn't quite understand what she was saying because she -- my sweet, tiny daughter -- was different.  Her hair was cut, shoulder-length and crimped into rows of jagged waves.  She smelled like artificial grapes and her lips were covered in a glittery purple gloss.  When she smiled, her teeth were the large, conspicuous teeth of an older child.  One whose baby teeth have fallen out long ago. 

This girl was my future daughter. 

I stared, open-mouthed, at Mia.  Not my Mia...but fully Mia.  Grown up by a few years at least -- to maybe 8 or 9 years old. 

I began to shiver with confusion and fear.  What had happened?!  Where had I been?!  And why couldn't I remember the last handful of years that had obviously passed while I was sleeping?

Then Mia reached her arm out and hugged me, breezing her grape-scented exuberance across my space.

Oh, I thought.  It's still her.  I still have time.