Mariella

The train ride on the way here
Was less than satisfactory

For one thing, they ran out of chocolate covered apple juice
Almost immediately

You haven't had it?

Well, it's divine

It looks like a chocolate apple
But when you bite into it
Apple juice comes out

The entire center is made of apple juice
Isn't that divine?

I think it's divine

Really, divine

There I was on the train
Sulking because some selfish trout
Ate all the chocolate covered apple juice
And I happened to look out the window
And see a bright purple sunset
Criss-crossing over the horizon

As if it were two separate things
Chasing each other

Relishing the moment
When they'd finally collapse together

And it made me think of Isabella
And the good-bye party

. . . . .

It's always a little hard
When your child
Lets you go

And I did get Isabella for much longer
Than most friends get their children

She was still in third grade
Believing in me

I remember how nervous I was on her fifth birthday
Because once children go to school
That's usually the end of the line

Once they have real people in their lives
They don't need imaginary people anymore

But things were still bad with her parents
And so she ended up needing me for a longer period of time
And I...

Well, I'd like to say I wasn't delighted

But I was

We used to go get ice
At midnight
Travel to the Sahara
To Ernie's Ice Bar

You'll find that the best sort of thing
Is always found in a place
Where there's very little of it

Rarity can make the simplest thing exceptional

And so the ice at Ernie's Ice Bar in the Sahara
Is absolutely divine

Just letting it touch the underside of your chin
Cools your entire body

You can stand in the middle of the desert
Watching the camels play kickball
While their owners sleep in silk tents
Passed out in the midnight heat

I went to Ernie's Ice Bar
The night I left Isabella

The night she threw a farewell party
For all her imaginary friends

We said our good-byes
And then I swept myself off to the Sahara
To wonder what I'd do next

That was when the train pulled up
And the camels went running
Thinking it was one of the Saharan worms
That eat camels and the owners of camels
And the camels were hoping the worm would eat their owners
And give them enough time to run away

'Ernie,' I asked, looking at the train, 'Since when does a train stop here?'

Ernie kept right on cleaning his glasses
His drinking glasses, not his eating glasses
And he said to me--

'Mariella, that's the Right Rail.'
'The Right Rail,' I asked
'Yup,' he said, 'That's the train you take, if you want to be Right.'

So I got on the train

After all

Who doesn't want to be right?

I find I'm right most of the time anyway
So it seemed like I belonged on that train

I picked up my little dog Stanley
And on we went

. . . . .

For the first eighty-seven days
Stanley and I were the only ones on the train
And it was divine

I could run up and down the aisles
Of each and every car
Letting my cape flourish behind me
And Stanley--

Well for some reason
He just wasn't his jovial self

For one thing, he refused to practice his tap dancing
And for another, whenever I would perform a puppet show for him
He'd always polite excuse himself at intermission
And not return for the second act

Many nights I'd find myself just sitting in the ice rink car
Staring at the pristine blue skating surface
Wondering if I should have stayed at Ernie's in the desert
Cool and warm, and wrong all over

. . . . .

The train stopped at 8:70 am
On a Tuesday in August
1921 or 2119
I can't remember which

I looked out the window in the hammock car
Where I'd passed out
After a long night of dancing by myself
In the polka car
When I saw Stanley step out onto the platform

I rushed down two cars
And opened the door to the train
But as I did, passengers came swarming inside

There were all sorts
Bears and ballerinas
Scary looking monsters
And astronauts
And a robot
And even a regular looking man named Dr. Stanz

I kept trying to push through them
So that I could get to Stanley
But the doors shut again
And the train began to move

I started banging my fists against the door
But when I looked out onto the platform
I saw Stanley sitting there
Looking at me
With this expression on his face
As if...

As if he knew this was going to happen

As if he had meant to separate us

I didn't understand

I didn't understand at all

. . . . .

I'd never felt so alone
Which was a bit silly
Since now the train was filled with people

The hammocks were always full
The polka room was always bustling
And the ice on the rink was no longer pristine
But carved and sliced with white lines
Where the bear would skate

I have to say, the new passengers were very nice

There was a magician that tried to cheer me up
By making clouds of smoke appear
Shaped like Stanley

But even though Stanley was a smoker
All the clouds reminded me of
Were how much I missed him
And Isabella

I thought about asking the conductor
To stop the train at her house
So I could see how she was doing without me
But that didn't seem right
And so it didn't seem logical to think
That the Right Rail could go there

The only thing that could have cheered me up even a little
Would have been chocolate-covered apple juice
And so of course, they were out of it

That's when I pulled the brakes
Sending Rudy the Bear
Right off his ice skates
And I hopped off the Right Rail

. . . . .

All I wanted to do from that point on
Was live here at Oreo Villa
And watch other people eat Oreos

I don't eat Oreos
Because they remind me of Paris
But I do enjoy watching others
Engage in their culinary divinity

Oreo Villa is known for two things

Oreos and the Man who Stands on His Head

He's famous for standing that way
Every single day since he was born

On the day of his birth, his mother put him upside down
And he's remained that way ever since

He speaks and laughs and tells stories
And every once in awhile he drinks
But it's an incredibly difficult process for him

The locals say that he has wisdom
Pouring out of him

Then again, he's upside down all the time
So I suppose it only stands to reason
That something should be pouring out of him

And if it were wisdom
It would mean wisdom comes from the feet
Which isn't all that strange if you really think about it

I went to the Man Who Stands on His Head
And after putting the raspberry token in his mouth
He asked--

'What is it you want to know?'

Except the words came out upside down
So it sounded like--

'Myef is if hon meuf fo kuom?'

Luckily I speak excellent upside down
Since Isabella used to love hanging her head down
To look underneath her bed
Where I'd be tanning
And reading US Weekly

I asked the Man Who Stands on His Head
When I would stop missing Isabella
And little Stanley
And my life
As it was

I wanted to know if I should get a new little friend
And a new little dog
And perhaps new shoes
Just because my new new shoes
Weren't looking new enough anymore

That was when the Man Who Stands on His Head
Stopped me
By holding down his hand
And saying--

'Mariella,' he said, 'Get real.'

It was the first time anybody had ever said that to me

Get real?

Real?

I'd never been real before

Some imaginary people have, of course

They start out as real people
And then just...fabricate themselves

But me--I'm Mariella

Everything about me is unreal
Exaggerated, whimsical
Fictional, elaborate

Unfathomable!

But the Man Who Stands on His Head
Is revered for his wisdom
And also, his ability to tell the difference
Between fries from Sam's Fry Shack
And Sam Jr.'s Fry Shack
Which is a skill no mere mortal could have

So his advice to me must have value

'Get real'

But reality is such a dangerous thing

It involves emotions
And vulnerability
And pain
And anger
And aging!

I reminded the Man Who Stands on His Head about all that
And he said--

'Aren't you feeling all of that anyway?'

I hadn't realized it, but...I suppose I had

I suppose without realizing it
I'd become
A real person

. . . . .

The minute I saw her
I knew she was

The doctors let me hold her
And I exhaled her name

Isabella

My husband was standing next to me
Crying lightly on the side of my face
Like a soft rain

In less than ten years
I will stop loving this man
Because he will become less real to me
More imaginary

I'll start to see dotted lines
Around his body
And his words
And our marriage
And everything else

Except for our baby girl

My Isabella

What she doesn't understand now
That she will one day

Is that one day her mother
The ogre who made her father move out
Used to be a completely different person

A silly young girl
Who traveled the world
With a little dog
That she lost on a train platform
Somewhere in Zurich

She'll learn that it was a wonderful sort of life
Her mother led
And she gave it all up
Willingly and lovingly
To have her little girl

Sometimes I think the trick to being a mother
Is to stay imaginary

To be there for your child
When she doesn't know it
And when she doesn't want it

When she doesn't want you there anymore

When Chris and I found out we were getting a divorce
We had Isabella see a therapist
Because we were concerned that she was still playing with imaginary friends
Although secretly there was one I wanted her to keep

Mariella

I don't know why it never occurred to Isabella
That her best imaginary friend's name
Was the same name as her mother's
But I guess it never seemed strange to her

Then I started hearing her talk about things Mariella said and did
About her travels
And her carefree ways of living
And her little dog Stanley

And I wondered--how did Isabella know about all that?

But I didn't ask because...

Well, little girls outgrow their mothers
But it was nice to see that Isabella was having trouble
Outgrowing Mariella

When she told me that she had bid Mariella farewell
A little part of me felt disappointed
Even though that's what we sent her to Dr. Stanz for

I felt like Mariella was my last connection
To my little girl

And with the divorce
And her father wanting to see her more often
I wondered if she and I were going to have any connection at all

Then, as I was making her breakfast
Isabella said to me--

'Mama, will you be my new best friend?'

I turned around
And saw her sitting at the kitchen table

An eight-year-old taking full grasp of reality
At an age when so much is supposed to remain blissfully surreal
And I saw a panic in her eyes

She didn't know what I was going to say

She didn't know if I would be her friend

I knelt down next to her at the table
And said--

'Bella, you've always been my best friend.'

Before I started to cry
I gave her a big hug
And while she was in my arms
I looked out the window

And out in the yard
Right on the surface of the pool
Where the water looks like a layer of blue crystal
There was a locomotive
Filled with all sorts of people

Magicians, and bears, and astronauts
And a man standing on his head

And standing in front of the train
Was a little dog with tap shoes on

And from what I could see
He was wagging his tail
Pleased about something

Then he ran back onto the train
And the whole thing took off
Going down into the blue water of the pool

Barely making a ripple
Across the surface