As far as I knew, ‘The Prince of Egypt’ was given his name by Hazel and crew. His pseudonym was a little more understandable than Jemima’s in that the top half of his attire was not too dissimilar to that of the cartoon character, Moses, in the same-titled film.
He wore a sparkly headdress that reached just past his shoulders. This was most often, a deep pink colour and covered in sequins. To keep his headdress in place, a band of an opposite hue was wrapped around his head and also contained sequins. There was not a colour that he did not wear, and so he looked like a walking rainbow.
Around his shoulders he wore a white cape made of glitter fabric and underneath the cape was a neon yellow lycra top. Continuing the superhero theme, he wore tight gold lamé leggings. Around his waist was an odd-shaped metal belt and in his hand, he held a staff. This staff was not curled over at the end like that of a shepherd, but instead, it had various bits of shiny material dangling from the top.
His hair was in small braids and sometimes, very thin dreadlocks and he sported a long, pointy beard that reached to his chest.
I don’t know what your imagination is like, but I suspect that you are assuming by my description that he was comical. Comically dressed yes, but other than that, he was rather frightening. Even though his manner was less aggressive than that of Jemima’s, his presence was far more intimidating.
He would walk in and glare at us, but never came up to the counter. Instead, he would ease his way into a corner and pick up a book. He would then remain in that same spot for at least half an hour, with his staff still in his hand but holding the book with both hands, in front of him.
None of us were ever fooled by his apparent interest in our titles. To me, when he was around, there seemed to be an evil presence that lingered around him.
His favourite corner was by the window on the ground floor right in front of the “New Titles” section. Therefore, most of the books he picked up were new releases. Occasionally he ventured upstairs, and he did this most often when we were busy on the ground floor.
We knew he was up to no good, but as he never appeared to be stealing or bothering other customers, we more often than not, ignored him. This was fine by me as I wanted to have as little to do with him as possible.
After a while, ‘The Sparkly One’ suddenly decided that he knew my name and began calling me Claire. He would come in and say, “Hello Claire” in a creepy voice. The fact that he got my name wrong suited me fine and I would reply cheerfully so not to give away any suspicion that he was in error. After this had become a habit, I promptly informed my colleagues of the situation because I was scared that one day, somebody was going to call over to me and say, “Hey Sharon…”. I had made up my mind that if this ever happened, I would ignore them. I didn’t want this man to know anything about me and if he ever asked me where I lived or what church I went to, I was planning to lie without any guilt whatsoever.
A few years later, a grim discovery was made. After ‘The Prince of Egypt’ had left the shop, a colleague picked up the same book that he had been reading a few hours earlier, and discovered a small card hidden between the pages. It was covered in what looked like demonic symbols. So that was it. He had been biding time so that he could place these witchcraft cards into our books. In hindsight, it was hardly surprising, but as we had no concrete evidence that this was his doing, he was never challenged about it. After this incident, we kept a closer eye on him and began to approach him to ask if he needed help with anything. The lengths of his visits became shorter, and I never forgot to give him a cheery wave when he would whisper, “Bye, bye Claire.”
I wonder how many books he managed to mark over the years. I wonder how many sparkly outfits he owned. I also wonder who he got his fashion inspiration from. Was it really Moses or Superman? Thankfully, he never resorted to wearing his pants on top of his leggings, and as superheroes don’t sport a headdress or a staff, I think the Saturday staff were spot-on with this one.
