Scene from Bastille

By all rights, she shouldn't have existed.
Spiky black hair, sharp features, she was a punked-up Amelie waif in a blue and red striped shirt, the kind you used to see in Benny Hill sketches on people with berets and toting baguettes. In short, a sort of shorthand of Frenchness so concentrated it didn't seem real.
She stood outside the window of the shop where I was eating lunch. Caught my attention. Smiled. And then took a cigarette, shoved it in her mouth vertically, and stuck her tongue out past it.
Then she waved and walked on.