Bangkok, Thailand - Barbie got the ultimate accessories today: a belly ring, a tongue stud and a tattoo It was all to commemorate her turning fifty, which she did not take as well as many had hoped.
"I'm tired of being a corporate clone. Working for the man," said Barbie from a stool in a tattoo parlor in a seedy part of downtown Bangkok, Thailand. "I'm fifty years old today. Fifty. And I'm going to live what I have left of my life, my own way. It's about time, don't you think?"
Suddenly, a motorcycle drove into the tattoo parlor's front door with a Eurasian woman with short-cropped raven hair riding it. She was approximately the same age, body type and attractiveness as Barbie in her prime. Only her bare arms were covered in tattoos, all Asian calligraphy.
"That's Aspirin. My girlfriend," said Barbie still sitting in her stool, drawing a deep drag on her cigarette.
As the tattoo artist nervously tried to go about his craft, the motorcycle rider drove continuously in circles around them, throttling up the engine; rear tire skidding and sliding on the floor, leaving a thick black layer of smelly burnt rubber behind it.
"I gave her that name because she numbs my pain," said Barbie, as she put out her cigarette in the palm of her own hand. "Come over here, Aspirin. I'm feeling some pain."
Just like that Aspirin jumped off her motorcycle letting it slide into a display case causing shards and pieces of broken glass to explode everywhere.
Impervious the mayhem and wanton destruction around them, Barbie and Aspirin joined hands and walked out of the parlor as the tattoo artist peaked from behind a counter, still cowering in fear.
"Don't get me wrong," said Barbie, as she left, flicking her still lit cigarette into the tattoo parlor onto the motorcycle that was leaking gasoline on the floor. "I love being a role model for little girls, but I did my time. And now, well. I guess they better look the other way because I'm about to cast myself out of the mold they made me from, for the last time. Oh yeah, and I'm gonna break it on my way out, too. Care to join me?"
Barbie then jumped onto another motorcycle parked outside the tattoo parlor and hotwiring it, she drove off through the crowed streets of Bangkok with Aspirin tattooed on her arm and clinging to her backside.
A large fiery explosion arose in the sky behind them. Not so far in the distance, taking the shape of a small mushroom cloud as they passed police cars, fire engines and ambulances on their way out of the city and America's heart.
