Short story like:

Woman in Search of her Sex


She became obsessed with getting water into her body. She took two hour baths followed by hour long handstands. Her bookcases were filled with enemas and douches. They were arranged according to color and scent. She drank ten gallons of Poland Spring a day. Her kidneys hibernated and had nightmares. She put a funnel in her ear and poured in rose water. She stuck her face into a sinkful of water and inhaled. She became more and more pale and indistinct. When she opened her mouth to speak, one could hear the faint crash of waves in the background. Her belly murmured with the lonely sonar calls of whales. Her skin became scaly. Her hair started to fall out. Her eyes became huge and stopped focusing on anything. She stopped saying hello to the women in the apartment next door when she got her mail. She stopped getting her mail.

She cut herself shaving and something vaguely orange oozed out. Her toenails dropped off. A huge fish tank, fishless, but full sat in the middle of her bedroom. At night, her neighbors in the building across from hers could see her face illuminated by the fish tank glow. She gestured and spoke eloquently to no one.

The neighbors called the cops. The cops took her away.

The apartment stood empty for two years. Mold creeped into huge snow flake shapes along the windowsills.

Then the neighbors saw the woman again, at night. She had grown enormous. She was shiney and naked at all times. She let her breasts rub against the glass as she painted the window panes black.

The neighbors called the cops. The cops went into the apartment and disappeared. The neighbors called more cops. More cops came. There was an accident. The building was burned to the ground. The smell of burnt fish for days.

The neighbors moved away. They moved to the ocean. They were visited by odd spells of melancholia and nose bleeds. They regreted the city. They were all eventually lost at sea.