Bohemian Avenue #7

It wasn’t just a video store. It was one of those buy, sell, trade places where you could sell the tired old videos you no longer watched or even had a desire to put in your VCR ever again. You wouldn’t get a whole lot for your trade, but it knocked a little off the price of your purchases at the cash register. This place really isn’t important to what I wanted to tell you, but it’s the first place I ever saw her.

When you first walk in the door, you are ambushed by the cloying smell of incense. If anyone still lived with me, they would know I had been there because I would smell like the incense of the day.

After the smell of the place sort of calms down, you see the CD bins, movie racks and many useless or otherwise unnecessary items such as the concert t-shirts and accessories to burn the incense.

In light of all this, I wasn’t surprised to see the Goth girl behind the glass counters full of toes rings, earrings and other piercing doodads. She was manning the cash register and called out a greeting to me as I entered.

I took a good look at her because she looked to be the most exotic young woman I’d seen in quite a while. She wasn’t a Goth in the strictest interpretation, but she had the blackened hair with the thick eye makeup, but without the white usually put on the face. She also had a streak of red through her hair.

She drew on her eye liner so that the outside corners of her eyes had two curly lines that one might call crow’s feet, but made me think of ancient Egypt. I’m too old and out of circulation to know what that is called.

On this particular day, I was out walking the neighborhood I had just moved into that winter. I spent the days of snow just getting to and from the bus stop and the grocery store. Saint Paul is one of the coldest places I’ve ever lived. The snow is piled so high; I couldn’t always see the cars going by on the street. When spring came, I thought, “So this is Highland Park. I should look around and see what’s here.”

Speaking of riding the bus, I ride the 16 to Minneapolis for work. I may have told you that I recently saw a girl in a red jacket and that I suspect her of being an elf of some kind. Now, this girl in the video place is another one that I’m sure is more than she appears.

I didn’t suspect anything until one day I noticed a red winged blackbird on the lawn of a house I was passing. The bird let me pass by, but after a few moments, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to look and there was the girl from the video store. Right then, it struck me that the red in her hair matched the red on the wing of the bird.

I know, you may have found out about my girlfriend’s letter on my kitchen table telling me she had left me, and that I’m just a lonely middle aged man so desperate for companionship, I’m now having delusions. You may think I’m crazy, but a couple of other times after that I saw the bird and the girl soon after. That’s why I think it’s more than a coincident.

I think the reason she was a little careless around me is because she has taken a liking to me. I know, not only am I crazy, but I’m conceded too. Maybe living alone has gotten to me enough for me to start seeing fairy-folk or to be infatuated with a video store clerk, but I will be keeping my eyes open for more of the chance glimpses of a hidden world in and around the Twin Cities. I plan to enjoy this, delusion or not.