I can't remember the last time I spent any amount of time or money at a mall, but over the summer I had the opportunity to do both for longer than anyone would ever want to. My laptop needed fixing, and the address of the repair shop I happened to find first was in the mall (I discovered after wandering around the outside of the mall for nearly an hour). My friend had dropped me off there, and I was to take a bus home when the repairs were complete.
The shop was run by an Asian couple, piled to overflow with boxes and parts, and a little smelly despite mall ventilation, which means it passed all three of my preliminary quality tests for a computer repair shop. Not only that, it existed in its own time continuum: each time I entered the store, at one hour intervals, I was told that the work would be complete in one hour. Either they were bluffing, or, more likely, the toxic drippings from the food court above had congealed densely enough to slow time itself. Fortunately the distribution of mall food courts throughout the world is uniform enough to ensure that gravitational differences are only noticeable within the stores themselves. They are, however, solely responsible for the coming pole shift.
If any of you have spent any time in purgatory, you'll know that the bookstore is frustratingly small or nonexistent, the labyrinth is paved with clothes you don't really want and gadgets you've never even seen on TV which wouldn't be a selling point to begin with, you probably shouldn't get a hamster, and the free samples aren't fooling anyone. In short, it is an exercise in alternating temptation and repulsion, and you're likely to come out of it with little memory of the events but a vague sense of a lesson learned, especially once you receive the credit card bill. Of the five hours I spent there, I remember wandering, searching for something to hold on to, checking the clock insistently (but the gravity wells play tricks), trying to stay outside which is little better. Sort of like a bad acid trip with more boring visuals. But by the end I was so deprived of meaningful information that I was sensitized to the smallest of packets: the casual conversation, whether eavesdropped or participated.
Waiting for the bus outside I stood next to a man of about thirty five. I said:
"Hey, the bus didn't come early, did it?"
"Naw, you don't much have to worry about that. I'm just hoping it shows up soon. I got off work early to avoid the rain."
It was a hot, clear summer day, and that might have been the end of the conversation, but the mall wouldn't let it be.
"...Man, it's been hot and muggy all day today." He said.
"More like every day."
"Yeah, I'm tellin ya. 'nis only gon' get worse, too."
"What, coming years, you mean?"
"Mmmhm. We done fucked up the ozone. It's just gon' get hotter, and hotter, and hotter..."
"Might be right."
"Hotter and hotter, til e'er'thing just catch fire and burn up!"
"Um."
"Can't find no water, all you can find is smoked salmon, man, shiiiit."
"Right, well, I just hope we can put it off as long as possible. I got shit to do."
The bus showed up and we boarded and never saw each other again. But I did see the girl, whom I've seen many times before in almost every part of Athens, the girl who wears the same giant sweater and matching stocking cap and walks around covering her face with her hand, so that only her eyes are visible. She sat in the seat across from me and I tried watching her every now and then, trying to catch her with her face uncovered. I had my theories: perhaps she had had some terrible accident, or a stroke, or some such face disfigurement that would make someone self-conscious enough to go to all the trouble to manually hide her face. This time, though, I was mall-warped enough to assume that she either straight up didn't own a face or was a ghost of some sort.
When we got off the bus, I caught her while walking past. For a split second, her face was revealed, a mystery solved. And she was normal looking, even cute. Huh. When I turned around to get another look, though, she was gone.
Athens, Georgia, I believe, is full of ghosts and anxiety. Lesson learned. Mommas don't let your babies spend full days at small malls.
No comments:
Post a Comment