Born a Crinkling Man

One evening Fernando is engrossed in a deep conversation online with Teodor and Iacobo when the chimes on the door jingle. The Keeper swivels his chair about and booms, “Hello,” but there is no response.

Nor did, Fernando came to grasp in short order, he any longer desire one, for his guest was none other than VHS Guy, returned to within the Dominion's boundaries after months in absentia. He cradled a paper bag under one arm and wispy tendrils of booze flowed from his person to lace the store's atmosphere in a stale, malty net.

VHS Guy moved into Fernando's store and pretended to browse the new release rack by picking up and then immediately setting down the case for The Great Gatsby. Then he returned to the foyer and set his bag upon the glass of the counter. “What's the deal with these ones here?” he asked, slurring his words.

“That's my Adopt-a-Movie Box. Those are for sale for four dollars each.”

“Adopt-a-Movie, eh? To keep?”

Fernando presses his lips together. “Yes.”

“Huh.” VHS Guy walks his fingers over the spines of the cases crammed within the cardboard box. “Then how come it says two bucks up here.”

“They become two dollars if you have eight dollars in purchases already made,” Fernando says.

“Why can't I just get them for two dollars right away?”

“Be...cause...that's what they're priced.”

“Oh.” VHS Guy reaches into the plastic hut which houses the blank scraps of paper for Fernando's weekly certificate drawing, but something resembling cognizant memories flicker through his neural web and he, for the first time in all the times he'd visited, does not fill out a slip and place into Fernando's magical red bucket. Instead, he gathers his illicit bagged goods and shambles out, leaving Fernando to his secrets.

This is well. This is how things ought to have been.