She was getting deeper and deeper, unfathomably deep. What would she see if she opened her eyes? For Emese’s mouth couldn’t possibly open wide enough to accommodate her mother’s arm right up to the elbow. Her fingers rummaged in the hot darkness, the thick plasma, and she was just about to figure something was wrong when she felt it. She knew that was it; she had found the essence. She tried to grab it, but the essence slipped through her fingers like a slimy octopus, trying to retreat towards a further corner of the darkness. Andrea made another attempt, not only to pinch the octopus with her fingers but to capture it, to possess it. She had to use her mind, not just her fingers.

She succeeded: the hot slime pulsated in her palm, and she kept on squeezing as hard as she could.

‘I got it,’ she whispered, her mouth dry.

‘Then pull!’ Mama said, and Andrea pulled it from the darkness through Emese’s throat; she again felt the moment when her hand slipped from one dimension to another. When she pulled her hand out of Emese’s mouth a burp broke out from her daughter, but after that she didn’t make a sound.

Andrea opened her eyes.

‘Beautiful,’ she said, although even she could see that the pulsating essence was slimy and shapeless. It was the essence of life, beyond terms of aesthetic conventions. Mama took it from her, and Andrea remembered the first time when her daughter was taken away from her in the maternity ward.

‘Well, I told you it would be quick,’ Mama said, and walked over to the final Tupperware container. She washed the essence in the prepared liquid, then took up the scissors. Andrea looked at Emese; her daughter remained motionless on the bed, her eyelids half open, the whites of her eyes showing. Her tongue protruded from between her lips, drool and snot dripped from her chin. Her body had let go of everything; the smell of urine and excrement filled the room. She seemed dead, but she was breathing, no matter how faintly. Andrea felt a wintry cold wrapping around her heart, for this was as close to death as she had ever seen her daughter. So she looked at the essence instead; that was her true daughter, right there.

She watched as Mama cut a piece of it with the scissors; the piece fell into the plastic container. Mama washed the wound because blood was oozing from the essence, which now seemed somehow shrunken and withered; but Andrea tried to convince herself that it was just her imagination. Mama turned to Andrea and pushed the wounded essence into her hand.

‘Now you can put it back,’ she barked, and left the room.