I want to go to a shopping mall really badly. Before, shopping malls were basically inaccessible to me. I went to them, but they were never my place. I didn’t buy the food, I couldn’t afford most of the clothes. I can only imagine that it would be a significant catharsis to have free reign of the place. There’s just something about it that seems right. I never thought of myself as materialistic. I’d like to think it would be a satire on materialism, but somehow, I don’t think it would be. I like new stuff as much as anybody. And while nothing that exists is technically new anymore, it would all be new to me. Zoic and I have done a fair bit of “shopping,” but only in places we deemed safe. Salvaging thrift store clothing feels as dirty as it sounds, but there weren’t any bodies to clean up.
That is the downside of the mall. The last time I drove by it, which was quite a while ago, maybe one of the first days even, all of the doors were boarded up. I knocked. There was no answer. That could be because they didn’t hear, or maybe things had gone bad. Something tells me we would have heard from them by now if they were still in there alive. And with as many people as were in there when things went bad, I can only imagine that the place is crawling. I’d like to go, maybe try to clean it out, but it would be extremely dangerous, and fire is less useful when you’re inside.
Maybe some day we’ll have a real reason to go. Right now, it’s an unnecessary risk.