Gaseosa

a little over a year has passed since she transformed into HumanGas®. In this corporeal state, cells don’t stick together but bounce off one another, conforming to whatever container holds them. In the woman’s case, this container is a black latex wrap, which makes her look like a slip of seaweed or a moist shadow. According to experts, HumanGas® is the result of an intricate process involving the duplication, extraction, and reinsertion of delicate cytoplasmic filaments within cells.

The woman, as might be expected of someone who has made such a profound change, never felt comfortable in her body, or among her peers. She’d always seemed stiff: a sharp thorn in the plush of a bath mat. Unfortunate, yet the woman had still been polite and conscientious, generous enough to keep her perpetual discomfort to herself.

She believes that becoming a gas instantly made her a better person. Her entire state of mind and, more importantly, her entire sense of self has shifted. She’s lighter now. Gentler. Before, she’d had so many inescapable issues to contend with: coping with back pain and period cramps, paying rent, striving to meet society’s impossible beauty standards. Her efforts sapped her energy and made her hate herself; it wasn’t easy to be a good person with all that going on. As soon as she learned it was possible to split from her body, she knew it would be the ideal way to live. The best fit for her principles and her personality.

She never could have guessed that her choice would provoke such anger. She didn’t expect praise, exactly, but she did believe—or hope—that in some subtle, quiet way, people would find a way to thank her, or give her some sign of recognition. A smile, at the very least, for making their days slightly more tolerable.

After all, she takes up practically no space, doesn’t get in the way, doesn’t bother anyone. No one in the history of humanity has ever been more environmentally conscientious. In fact, she is the definition of eco-friendly: she spends her days slipping through bushes and trees. No matter how she looks at it, she cannot fathom how she’s sparked such resentment, such rage. She suspects that not even the “haters” understand why they despise her, and when threatened, she merely mists away.

In general, she’s a pacifist, but if she were really provoked—with a vicious attack or a crude joke—she would be capable of violence. She could hurt many people if she wanted to. Like most gases, she spreads easily and can be quite toxic. The good news is that she hasn’t had an occasion to realize the full extent of her noxious power. For now, at least, she emits a serene, harmless confidence. She sees herself as authentic.

Her relationship with her pets, however, has proved “problematic.” Her cat, Florita, no longer recognizes her and whenever they’re face-to-face (so to speak) tries to hunt her. The situation has become so dire that they can no longer be in the same room. Meanwhile, the woman’s dog, Blanca, has developed postural scoliosis— to say nothing of the severe damage to her vertebrae and cervical muscles—from constantly sniffing skyward. And so the woman keeps her distance, hoping that Blanca will someday forget all about her and go back to sniffing the ground, as she ought to. These losses, she admits, have been her greatest sorrows.

Still, there are perks. So far, no one has tried to charge her an entry fee for hovering just above the water at the municipal swimming pool. Even if they did, it wouldn’t be hard to avoid paying: she would simply evaporate.

now, if we reach through the fog of her disincorporated brain cells—what we might call something like Frontal Lobe Mist—there is one thing that truly perturbs and embarrasses her: her newly incessant lust. It’s as though the freedom of being a gas has made her flammable with desire. And as she has acclimated to her new state, she has come to the difficult conclusion that while the origin of her desire may be emotional, the only way to satiate it is physical.

Tragically, without any erogenous zones, she is condemned to eternal horniness. Because she has not yet formed an ethics for her gaseous state, she prefers to avoid relationships altogether, but she can’t shake her obsession with bodies—more specifically, with the sensation of being under or on top of one. Perversions have ensued. Nothing too serious, though if you knew the whole of it, you might be alarmed. Every now and then, she visits people at night to watch them and settle on their chests. In the clear light of day, her behavior is unjustifiable—she can’t rationalize it. These are strangers, sleeping strangers, strangers incapable of giving their consent. Very rarely, though it has happened, a light sleeper will wake. Understandably, they panic at the sight of her—a mysterious black bloom.

From an anthropological standpoint, this risks setting society back by centuries: many have mistaken her cold, dark shadow for a mythical creature, even a ghost. Who knows what dire consequences such beliefs will bring. Luckily for her, this gaseous woman doesn’t yet see the scale of her impact. If she did, it would destroy her. In her own words, what motivates her above all is social progress. Let us rise together.