She sat on her suitcase, waiting for the taxi. It was hard to believe the love of her new life was coming to such a pedestrian end. At least her previous infatuation turned into a glamorous tragedy reflected in the media of the times... even somewhat mythologized for the generations to come. While now she was sitting here like a fool, waiting for a taxi.  
     She had heard the fairy tale about his early life, but had never imagined playing a role in the sequel. The day they met was pure magic. She was lost and cold. He took her in and nurtured her back to life, and love. For the first time she felt like a human being, the human being she had once longed to be. Now she knew that, despite his pledge of honesty or precisely because of it, Pinocchio hardly lived happily ever after.
     After his father passed away, Pinocchio started looking for a job as the small amount left off old Geppetto’s will was vanishing fast. A shrinking demand for woven baskets and custom furniture had forced him to close shop. Yet, a globally methastasizing market had created a pending need for sales people. Pinocchio decided to give this swelling niche a try. Following in the pioneering footsteps of his compatriots who expanded the business horizons of a new alcohol-free world, Pinocchio crossed the ocean to join the anonymous ranks of the dreaming post-modern nomad. The Oneiric State was indeed an attractive notion.
     Employers were delighted to make Pinocchio’s acquaintance - after all he was a celebrity of sorts. They maintained bon ton throughout the job interviews despite a lame CV and the sad realization that his notorious experience in lying was of no use now that he could no longer practice. Getting the odd job here and there was about as much as he could bargain for. Yet our hero remained mindlessly loyal to recession stricken Montreal where he had eventually moved to evade, he believed, the aesthetic inflation that inevitably marked any political oblivion, let alone one inspired by world domination itself. When he found out those abstract concerns were but a slogan compared to the immediate terrors of the transplanted human, he had already been overtaken by the inertia of localization. Then again, war was still to come.
     Pinocchio’s personal life sucked proportionately. Despite the bio-metamorphosis he underwent after he mellowed down on social norm, Pinocchio hardly turned into Mr. Handsome. After all, he was originally a Marionette and there was only so much organic matter could do to remedy the edgy crudeness of the wooden configuration.
      Once upon a time, in real life, there was a drop-dead beauty that would systematically disregard men’s looks. She even had an entire supporting theory, too inconsistent and boring to quote, which nevertheless prompted her to finally marry Quasimodo in an updated version where he had succeeded to provide his generous heart with a matching pool of wealth and success. Needless to say, Pinocchio had neither. In other words, as far as the procreation market was concerned, he lacked a competitive edge. Well, his mild popularity (due to his childhood adventures) would land him the occasional literature student who, vaguely fascinated with his complex character (and waning glory), would treat him to profound conversations over coffee. Invariably, she’d abandon their charming afternoons for the nocturnal passions of a promising intellectual. She would give Pinocchio an elegantly moving speech about their forking paths and, years later, would mention him fondly in the first chapters of her memoirs.
      The years went by reluctantly in the dull, involuntarily celibate, life of Pinocchio. He would make the best of it by pondering the grandiose questions of being and mortality. Though death was an elusive category and could barely comfort his troubled soul. After all, Pinocchio’s somewhat mythical nature deprived him of the definitive life span his more or less fellow mammals shared. Yet, his now human heart yearned for companionship, for the warmth and love of a woman, of the mother he had never had. For the return of that fleeting mnemonic touch of the Maiden with Azure Hair.
      It was a typical day in the life of Pinocchio. He had gotten up late, jobless again. Barely conscious, he attempted to tidy his bed before proceeding to make coffee – an effort that wiped the last spec of enthusiasm off his melancholic character. Collapsing in the armchair, he lighted his first cigarette of the day.
      My ever so perceptive Reader, stop before you sneer at our protagonist and henceforth start doubting the credibility of my story. Yes, of course, Carlo Colodi left Pinocchio as an exemplary little boy. Indeed, the boy continued to be the comfort of his father’s days - smoking was far from his adolescent inventory. But when hardship struck this young adult’s life, he could no longer evade the alluring companionship of a silent cigarette. Through the years of voluntary exile, this enigmatically powerful tobacco product remained his most faithful companion. Pinocchio had contemplated its significance with chronic devotion and even composed an essay entitled In Praise of Cigarettes. In it, he wrote at lyrical length about the transcendence of the breathing pleasure and the meaning of what he called the fire breath, the relationship of addiction to death and the synaesthetic nature of smoking. However, he got stuck at the latter as he tried to prove cigarettes engaged all the senses, but couldn’t quite fit the sense of hearing into it.
     Anyway, he was drinking his coffee smoking his cigarette and humming a bouquet of selected Italian arias. Don’t get me wrong, Pinocchio was a true opera buff and he knew of more than the best selling aria compilation. But he would leave the profound stuff for later when he would be fully awakened to the depths of a musical masterpiece. And, much to his credit, his finely tuned ear for opera had not snobbed him into aesthetic hysteria. The songs he was now listening to would bring back fond memories of his native land with its rolling hills, magnificent buildings, cobbled streets of his hometown. And for some reason, the memory of running up the street while still a wooden chap, where he runs and runs until…. A Carrabinieri blocks his way, lifts him by the nose and hands him solemnly to his, exhausted by the chase, old father.
      By the time Pinocchio reached the bathroom, it was already 6 P.M. winter. Night had set in. There was no mirror above the sink and only the sonic reflections of the retiring pipes reverberated around the ceramic space when he turned off the shower. Until an unsettling noise joined in, coming from the gutters of the toilette. Pinocchio held his thoughts. The sound grew near and a powerful thump announced the arrival of whatever started emerging from the toilet bowl. For a split second, Pinocchio recapped all relevant horror movie scenes, trying to haphazardly reconcile art with life. During the rest of the aforementioned second, an unprecedented event unfolded to commemorate Duchamp and to forever redeem the romantic toilet. Half a messed up but downright gorgeous woman emerged through the battered Acme toilet bowl. Pinocchio’s jaw, which would naturally recede, now literally dropped to his chest.
      Upon seeing his naked figure, the female intruder gave out a muted scream of mixed emotions that proceeded to carve a suppressed smile on her otherwise frightened face. Evidently, this was the first nude male she had seen up close.
He is handsome, she thought, but asked indignantly:
      “Who are you?”
      Finally, he managed to reach the towel, almost slipping on the floor in the process.
      “Uhh, a… nobody really.” Then, extended a hand:
      “Well… Pinocchio – delighted to make your acquaintance!”
      “Oh, Pinocchio? Weren’t you the one who gave up a life of wonderful, albeit unfortunate adventures for the mental misadventures human nature could offer?”
She is not only beautiful, but also quite intelligent, he thought and replied:
      “This is incredibly accurate, come to think of it.”
      “Well,” she said ponderously,” Pretty much the story of my life. Only I was seduced by the misadventures of the heart. Oh, I forgot to introduce myself – my name is Little Mermaid. A tad ridiculous, I must admit as I’m way past a diminutive age, but at least it doesn’t show. I’ll probably have to change my name if I ever ripen. Although, even if I grow to appear 50, I’d still be little to an eighty year old,” concluded Little Mermaid as she was growing increasingly flirtatious. “May be,” she went on, ”instead of changing my name, I’ll just shift my target market. But anyway, here I am, blabbing my head off, while you’re freezing politely in your tiny towel. Excuse me for intruding like this. I guess I must be going…”
      “Oh, no, no! Please, be my guest. It’s such a pleasure talking to you.”
In spite of her fully naked upper body, Pinocchio’s frank gaze would not falter below her chin line. She had never seen this abstract look in men’s eyes during her short but intense sojourn among their kind.
      “I’m afraid it’s been me doing most of the talking,” she replied in acquiescence.
      “Would you like a candy?” asked Pinocchio energetically to conserve the momentum.
      “I’d love one, but I suppose mine is not the most comfortable position to savour the pleasures of life.”
      Pinocchio helped Little Mermaid get out of the toilet bowl and into the bathtub. After days of swimming in the cold stinky gutters of the city, she felt heaven had descended unexpectedly upon her. Her host was not only the most handsome creature she had seen in months but also irresistibly accommodating. While she was enjoying the gentle caresses of her native element, he brought her a hot cup of coffee and a box of divine chocolates in a, what seemed like silver, plate. Then he moved the TV and the armchair so that she could watch the news and him, all from the comfort of the bathtub. Thus laid out they spent one of the most heart warming nights in their lives, conversing happily about what not – the environment, opera (she had a natural feel for it), human nature, distant lands (his geography was impeccable), canned food and anything in between. To say it outright, their weary mythic souls were falling quickly and passionately in love.
      The taxi arrived just as Pinocchio appeared with her wheelchair. His hunched posture, withering hair, protruding nose were all cast in reality now. Eventually they would converge into an abstract memory, a fiction. So would the years of passionate love, of hypnotic devotion, of cool alienation. But time could not stand corrected when he, Pinocchio, the wooden chap, the Italian immigrant, the man who’d known the pain and the aspiration of fitting into the human form, called her a freak.
      She flapped her fishtail. As Pinocchio, the man, was silently helping her into the taxi, Little Mermaid realized she had lost out to natural convention. Saddened, she vowed she would end this obsolete and last fairy tail once and for all. She would get those freaking legs, and this time without the vocal side effects.
      "To the Center for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, please!"