It was a water-cooler rumor,
an office joke circulating,
all about 'the girl in the picture' -
a framed photo on my desk.
They called her 'the mystery girl,'
a radiant blue-eyed brunette
with a beguiling smile. They
said they couldn't believe
someone so great looking would
ever have eyes for me, would
ever care about me, would ever
share my hopes and dreams. They
thought it was a lark. They even
said she didn't exist because
they never saw her, she never called
me at the office, never met me
for lunch

Tough! I thought. She's very shy,
very timid. She's an artist, she
works out of our apartment, she's
not a people person. But they didn't
believe me because I never brought
her with me - to Christmas parties or
weddings or the company picnic in May.
They said I made her up, that the picture
on my desk was something I got from a
stock photo book or from something I
picked up off the shelf of a dollar store

Give me a break!

And then the unthinkable happened.
She left me - just like that!
There was a note and nothing else.
I still don't understand it.
I quit my job. I cleaned out my
desk at the office and went back
to the apartment...she seemed to be
everywhere...in pictures all over,
her smile beaming at me from
every room

Now in my loneliness, in my drift
toward sleep each night, my heart
is hollow. I murmur her name in
the darkness...'Arianna...Arianna...'
- a name like the wind - free, restless,
rhapsodic, an anthem bursting
from my heart, the answer to my
most desperate prayers