I finally cleaned my room and found a few random writings scribbled on papers.  This is probably my favorite that I found.

…and the old woman lay dying, her withered face showed its pain. Her breath stale but no one was there to notice since she had no family to speak of. She lay in the hospital bed, her last bed, alone.

She remembered her mother, who would always sing her to sleep. Her mother gone for many years, no one to sing this one last time. The old woman’s favorite was the one about the beautiful steps that climbed out of the ocean onto the land. And how the mermaids would pull themselves up the steps to become women for a few minutes each year.

So she sang… she sang of the steps and the mermaids who indulged in the ability to walk the sand with real legs, risking their lives to simply feel dirt beneath their feet for a few moments every blue moon.

The nurse came into her room. The old woman sang louder, as loud as her body would allow. The family next door, visiting their cousin who had fallen off a ladder, heard the singing and were drawn into the old woman’s room. They listened. They learned of the mermaids… and since the song was short and the old woman kept singing, the little girl holding her father’s hand began to know it and so she sang.

The old woman’s singing became softer and faint until it stopped all together. The long monotone beep from the monitor drowned out by the singing of the little girl. She squeezed her father’s hand and sang louder. The mermaids rejoiced. They’d feel the earth against their skin once more.