Think I Want to Twist the Plot This Time

Part 1

Tonight is one of those nights, where Barbie struggles to keep her eyes averted from that sun as it blazes past the waves. Whenever the sky is pink like this, on a warm summer evening, she's reminded that sometimes Barbie Land can reflect in this real, messy, absolutely beautiful world. She sits on a concrete bench that hasn't yet been occupied, and starts to lace up her rollerblades—slowly, so she can still enjoy this part of the evening.

It's funny now, how bright they are compared to her more muted wardrobe, with their neon, plasticky texture and almost blinding hot pink laces. She's just in faded jeans and a dusty rose bomber jacket. Sure, stylish is so fun every once in a while, but now that she has to dress herself and her clothes don't just magically appear when she wakes up in the morning, reaching for whatever doesn't smell at the top of the drawer is so much easier. Once Gloria introduced her to leggings, dressing up every day was officially over.

Barbie stands and skates absently, taking the road back she knows so well as the sun disappears. At some point on her way back, her clothes will simply change as the magic of Barbie Land starts to take over, probably themed to whatever bodacious era is being celebrated tonight.

But something catches the corner of her eye as she's about to get on her snowmobile. She remembers seeing that horse-drawn buggy the last few times she's gone between the real world and Barbie Land, but not so much the first. Wouldn't Ken have gone bonkers had he known there was potential horse travel?

Barbie recalls the conversation she had with Gymnast Barbie (of course, she used to be "Weird" Barbie but the Barbies would only call her that behind her back and to her face), where she brought this up on one of her more recent ventures.

"What happens if I use the horse and carriage instead?" she'd asked, just before getting in her Corvette to make the journey back to LA. "It looks like you can either use the roller blades as the last step to the real world, or that."

"Oh, yeah, that, see that's pretty interesting," said Gymnast Barbie, getting in her usual splits position by using Barbie's Corvette as a way to stretch her legs. "Tried to find the kid who played with me by using it, back in the 80s. Ended up in Miami with a face full of sand and a criminal record. Maybe it wasn't sand..."

"Wait, wait." Barbie held up a hand, interrupting Gymnast Barbie's current train of thought. "It can take you... to different times?" Sasha had shown Barbie some time travel movies, like Back to the Future and The Terminator. But in those movies, time travel always had to be achieved with science, with electric trails and monologues about Flux Capacitors or moving through a quantum realm. She couldn't help but chuckle; was it really that easy for a Barbie to go through time?

"Whenever and wherever you want to go, Sweetcakes." Gymnast Barbie moved to do her splits on the ground, allowing Barbie to get into her Corvette. "Your clothes will change to keep up with the time. Just remember where you parked the horse and try not to get into too much trouble."

Well, there's the buggy now. The horse, a gorgeous white mare with pink streaks in her mane, stares at Barbie with her big eyes, inviting her over. In this moment she starts to see why Ken loves horses so much; they're majestic, but so gentle, especially when she steps over to the mare and pats her nose gently and she leans into it with a soft neigh.

She can take the snowmobile and all her other modes of transportation back to Barbie Land. She can swim with Mermaid Barbie and discuss all the new things she's learned with President Barbie and be comfortable with everything she knows, then go back to LA and watch Vanderpump Rules with Gloria tomorrow morning. If she goes to Barbie Land, nothing changes. It's a safe cocoon, wrapping her in a warm blanket of comfort, of everything she knows.