Air

They say that she would never wake again. She lies perfectly still on the bed, arms demurely set on both of her sides, eyes gently closed. She drifts in and out of consciousness, and she listens.

The men and women, they whisper - yet they couldn't have spoken much louder. The hiss of breath that escapes from the gaps of their teeth as they whisper, the brush of fabric on naked skin as they unconsciously shift their position; all these are aberrantly loud to her. As though she is the air that occupies the room. The constant beeping of the monitor pulsates through her, she could dance a jig to the rhythm, yet she couldn't feel it. She wanted to touch it - her heart - but she couldn't find it. 

Air. She could be the air. She tests the notion in her head. She would be everywhere then. She could diffuse through the tiniest pore, she could inhabit him. She could occupy his mouth, fill his mouth with her and only her. She could slip through his shirt, lie on his chest as he sleeps. She could breathe on him, she could lick him, she could squeeze him with all her might and he would not have noticed. 

Her dreams then, would have come true: she had always wanted to be just like Ariel, the little mermaid. Only instead of becoming a mermaid, she becomes air.