Bizarro Spectral Erosa

Romania is a land of dopplegangers. It's like a bizarro world. Maybe that's the way it is whenever you travel. Maybe there are copies of everyone wandering around. Maybe if very many people come over from the U.S. there will be a giant matter-antimatter explosion as people meet their doubles. Today I had to look twice at a fellow who looked an awful lot like a Romanian William Devane. I've seen a Nestor Serrano lookalike, a guy who looks like my friend Mike in Augusta and even a guy who looked like he could have been a younger version of Antonio Banderas.

But it's really strange when they come in pairs.

Monday night we went to an unmarked club next to a posh restaurant where we knew a Goth night was being held. My first impression was that the bar was very attractive. Atmospheric lighting, nice brickwork, arches, tables. The works. My second impression was that hardly anyone was wearing black. One of the only people in black was wearing a black T-shirt and looked an awful lot like our friend Paul who we met at Augusta's Goth night, Spectral Erosa. He had the same shoulder-length hair and pleasant face. He was even built very much like our Paul and spent the evening fooling with his camera and taking photos of his friends, a very Paul thing to do.

The weird thing, though, was the fact that his girlfriend looked an awful lot like our Paul's girlfriend, Mary. She had short spiky hair, which she had dyed blonde, which is Mary's color, and thick-rimmed glasses. It was a "look." It was Mary's look. I stared, while pretending to gaze thoughfully and poetically into the distance.