Fear, Uncertainty, and the Mall

Bottling the air of late-stage capitalism

My mother insisted on having the kids take pictures with Santa at the mall this weekend, but it’s the image of the mall itself that I can’t shake. I booked a time, and we went to the fancy mall so the lines wouldn’t be crazy, but the atmosphere was a different kind of crazy. It was quiet, the weekend after Thanksgiving. Ominous even. We were only there for about 45 minutes, but I wanted to stay longer and watch. There was something in the air, beyond Tom Ford parfum and expensive leather, and it’s been lingering over the last few days.

"I don’t go places by myself anymore,” I said as we headed down the criss-cross maze of empty escalators. I looked up at Ken and he returned my gaze but seemed to be more concerned with rushing the two tweens out of an atmosphere that brought on a discussion about Kylie Jenner.

“I could sit in here all day and write a novel,” I called back.

“You should.” He meant I shouldn’t.

Over the past two days, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The mall as a time machine. The mall as a metaphor. Individual stories and characters in this dystopian scenario. A story about me, sitting in the mall writing a story, but

I’m too scared to write fiction. I’m afraid I will sit in the mall all day and have nothing to show for it - which is probably why I should do it. Fuck a product. But I feel an immense sense of guilt writing fiction. Like there’s no good fiction left to write. Like if it’s not suitable for a Netflix series, it’s not worth writing - even though know the opposite is true. It’s only worth writing if it is so unsuitable as a Netflix series that they can never mutilate it into one. I’ve started 2 other stories, both unfinished. One about a homeless woman in Portland, and another sci-fi with a Foundation series-type bent. The story about Elle was a cope, and the story about Kiara was too. This mall story would be, too, in a way.

I had a panic attack a few years ago in an Amazon bookstore. I might have been high, but what does it matter? All those book covers facing forward, staring into your soul…it’s enough to send anyone paying attention into a tizzy. That place is a nightmare. Bookstores are supposed to be messy. Mall bookstores shouldn’t even exist. Books aren’t convenient or glamorous. They’re awkward and hard to choke down at times, in the context of today’s world, at least. Seeing them propped up like that, one or two copies of each, knowing full well that the sales numbers for each book had been analyzed so they’d move product - it’s enough to make you sick.

“Did the mall make you feel weird?” I laid my head down on the arm of the upholstered bench that sits behind my dining room table. My sister at the foot end of the table scrunched her nose slightly.

“No.”

A long silence held the air before my aunt on the other end, behind my head, asked, “Weird, how?”

I knew clarifying my question wasn’t going to help. “I dunno, like no one there can afford this shit, but they’re there dressed up, pretending like they can. Like the mall is built for people who don’t exist.”

“How do you know they can’t? Don’t you think people save up to buy themselves something nice?” My aunt always looking for an angle.

“I know they can’t. The average American doesn’t have $400 in their savings and is one cancer diagnosis away from bankruptcy,” She knew I was right, but persisted in trying to make me feel better - in her special way.

“What do you care? You’re not the Illuminati. You’re not a politician or a billionaire. You can’t change the world!”

My sister chimed in “Yeah, who cares?”

Who cares, indeed.

I’m afraid If I go to the mall to write, I won’t feel good when I come home. But, I already don’t feel good. If I don’t go soon, the urge will leave. It’s already fading, and with that last sentence, it seems that I’ve stoppered the noxious air of the mall - for now.