“Thank God for pornography,” thought Michael.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that? Baby you look like you’re having a bad day,” said Sarah.
“Yeah, I am. It just seems like I’m working all the time. My job is my whole life… except for you, of course. Here’s what I’ve been thinking about when I’m walking around the Mall and I’ve got all that time to think: A man’s work defines who he is. My job is dumb as hell. What does that mean that I am?”
“I hate when you do this. I hate when you get depressed and start talking about crazy things. Your job is fine, it’s no worse than mine or anyone else’s here. Other people just don’t obsess about it like you do. Think about it. Just go to work and you enjoy your days off. Life is pretty simple,” she said.
“Do you remember taking vacations when you were a kid? I don’t mean just having a few days off, but actually going somewhere,” said Michael.
“Baby, do you know that you always bring up my childhood when you feel bad. I would love to go on vacation to some exotic destination. I see the TV’s and the ad’s too and believe me, I want to get away forever sometimes,” she said referring to the barrage of television screens around the food court. Michael looked around and started to pay attention to the white noise, which often turned into an indistinguishable blur while a person was eating. There were adds for so many of the far off resort destinations that Michael had been seeing since he was a kid. He family was too poor to afford it. His father had talked about taking the family away but he was gone before it ever became a reality. He remembered his mother wanting to take the kids but they always had to live in envy of the other families that went to the tropical destination spots. Envy was a good motivator. Sarah’s family made it a point to go every year. She made it out to be no big deal but it was always something that she liked to hang over Michael’s head. That’s what he presumed at least. It was often there in background and was a little edge that she had over him. That’s what he presumed at least. She was a little more cultured and aware because she had been out of the country and he had not. Envy is a good motivator.
“When you were a kid, what was it like when your family went on vacation?”
“Baby, don’t do this. You always do this when you’re not feeling good. Why are you in such a bad mood?”
“Well I’ll tell you about my day if you tell me about vacations.”
“Fine, we went every year to one of the islands. I loved it. We went to the beach and then we went to the Mall.”
“So it was just like here?” asked Michael.
“Well it was a little different, some of the restaurants were different and it was warmer. I always get a t-shirt. You’ve seen me wearing it. It says: Life’s a beach.” “What else did you buy?” All kinds of things… I always bought sunglasses.”
“Now you sell sunglasses,” said Michael.
“Well I’ve never thought about it,” she said smiling.
“I guess I really like sunglasses. Sunglasses are great. So, tell me about your day, baby. Why are you in a bad mood?”
“I had a run in with my favorite security guard. He thinks I broke a sign.”
“Did you?”
“No I didn’t break anything. This guy has been a pain in my ass for years. I don’t even remember how it started. He’s such a self righteous prick,” said Michael.
“ He was the self righteous prick? It started because of your snide comments. You always have to wise up and cause trouble. It started three years ago when you just left your job in the middle of a shift. You never told me why you did that. You just went and did something crazy one day. It’s his job to keep track of when people do strange things. He’s keeping us safe. He’s a trained professional you know. Security officers are hand picked from the time they’re kids and spend their life learning how to protect us. That’s why we take a holiday on security day. It’s out of respect for their sacrifices. When you get like this, I just don’t understand… you can’t afford to get fired. We can’t afford it. We have to pay the Debt. Why can’t you just go to work like everyone else and not start any trouble?”
“Sarah, when you went to those other countries weren’t there guards there with guns to protect you while you went shopping?”
“Yes, you already know that there were and we were very happy to have them there. They keep us safe from all the crazy people.”
“You don’t think there’s a problem with any of this?” Asked Michael.
“The only problem is that you’re making problems. I have to go back to work. Please don’t do anything crazy. You can be my crazy person at home, but not here.”
“I’m not going out of my way to get fired here.” Michael was well aware of the mountain of the Debt that kept them running in circles. The announcements hammer the point home.
“Shoppers, don’t delay: APR financing like this comes along once in a lifetime.” Poverty is a good motivator.
Sarah was getting up to take her tray to the trash. “What about other traveling that you’ve done? Didn’t you used to go to the other side of the country to visit your family?” Asked Michael.
“Baby, what does it matter? You shouldn’t be thinking about a vacation now. We should be planning to pay the bills. Besides, we both want a new bigger TV. There’s a sale going on next week on the model that we want. Everyone loves it. Some people have been so excited that they start to drool when they watch it.”
“I know about the TV, but can you tell me what it was like when you went to the other side of the country?”
“It was nice. It was sunnier than over here. I usually had to buy sunglasses.”
“What do your relatives do? What was it like to be in a town that was far away from here?”
“It’s great! We’re going to go one day. It’s just like here. The family that I have out there all work at the Mall. That’s where we went when we were out there. It was great. Maybe after we get a bigger TV we’ll go out there to visit.”
“Did you ever see any of the food being made?”
“Do you mean what did we eat?”
“No, I mean when you were traveling. Did you see people you know, making the food? I mean did you see animals?”
“All I ever saw was Malls.”
“Where does the food come from?” Asked Michael.
“Baby, who cares? If you didn’t think about this stuff you would be much happier. Your mother used to tell me that about you all the time. You’ve been doing this since you were a kid. It’s like you don’t want to be happy. I have to get back to work. I’m happy that your weekend is coming up. You need to relax.”
Soon after she left, Michael felt the gurgling in his stomach that usually followed lunch at the food court no matter what he ate. He decided to take Sarah up on her advice and to use the better part of what remained of his shift to stay out of trouble and make his presence known in the work lavatory. The food court was a good motivator.
As he was sitting on the toilet in the back office, Michael was becoming irritated. The bathroom was in a small dank space with little more than a toilet and an industrial sink to dump out the mop buckets. It wasn’t the stark contrast of the neon lights or the pastel color landscape out in the Mall that was making him get irritated. He actually liked his stinky sanctuary. He felt it a shame that it like so many other dwellings of otherwise peaceful dankness had to be covered with bathroom philosophy in the form of little posters with insightful wisdom. To his right was a poster of an adorable kitten barely hanging on to a branch with the caption “Just hang on till the weekend”.
This was a nice thought but not much to ponder about while the food court fecal deluge was in full swing. The poster that was directly in front of him on the back of the door was another story entirely. It was the picture of a footprint in a sandy beach. A picturesque setting the likes Michael had never see. Next to it read a caption; “It’s not what we take with us that’s important, but what we leave behind.” There was just something abo
ut being in the bowels of a glitzy Mall, ringing out your insides in a poorly lit forgotten bathroom that made him unable to accept the illusion of a beautiful place. He wanted more than an insincere poster. He decided to leave his own piece of wisdom behind in the toilet and go punch out. He had once again done what the little kitty on the poster had told him and he had made it through another mind numbing week. The standard plan was to dull the time away by drinking beer and watching TV. The standard feeling was to be happy for the days off. Michael had only one feeling and one thought. “I hate this fucking place.”
Apathy rules the land. There is no need for a large militant police force. Enclosed cattle require little more than gentle prodding. I see them all now droning away the hours of their lives. I used to be just like them, eager to fill up the time with whatever I could and there was always something. There was always a new video game or TV show. There was always a convenient distraction. There was always a holiday coming up. It was always a party. Only now when I feel my life almost certainly over can I see how much I wasted. I lived for a meaningless job doing things I didn’t care about because I was being told to. I lived with a woman for six years and had nothing to really say to her. How can it be that I went so long in the dulled oppression? It’s because I didn’t think about it. The cattle accept the environment that they are given. After working a hard day, who wants to think about their life? That’s why we have the famous people and the movies. Everyone roots for the good guy and hates the bad guy. Life is simple if you don’t think about it. That’s what they always said. There’s no cattle prod needed.
Those days are behind me though. Soon I’m going to get off of this highway once and for all and make my new life. There are still people outside of the union of Malls and I’m going to find them. I feel like I’ve been looking forever. I’ll lose the hunter who’s chasing me when I get there. Life will finally start in the great cliffs. The people are free in every actual sense of the world. The law of this great tragedy of civilization, the great tragedy of potential will have no hold on me. The truth is I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know what life is really like outside of Mall life. Maybe I’ll find someone else. I don’t believe it but I wish I could tell Sarah about how scared I am to go. They have to accept me there. I’m out of options.
I don’t know if it’s her that I miss or the safety of routine. Maybe I’m really just afraid of letting myself feel what’s really inside of me. Maybe I’m relieved that she’s gone. Maybe, I’m really the monster that they must be making me out to be. I’m not too sure about anything anymore. I guess that it gets that way when you’ve been brought up in a lie. Maybe I should rethink everything. This isn’t a movie and I keep thinking it might be a dream. If it is though, I don’t want to wake up. I don’t think I can go back. I’ll take that horrible man any day over being another cow in the herd. I wonder about all of it now. What about the dead? I was supposed to feel sorry for them all. I was supposed to be filled with guilt. Maybe it was better for them that they’re gone. Maybe I saved them all from a horror that was as corrosive and as it is all encompassing. It’s a horror masking itself in a smile. I saved them all from a fate worse than death. I’m a monster? Maybe I’m really a hero. Maybe I should be celebrated like Braden Pinn. Like Sarah said, you have to be one or the other. One day I realized that I was never going to be a movie star. Maybe I’m a bad guy now. Maybe the world needs bad guys. Maybe people need bad guys in their life, maybe, maybe, maybe.
Chapter 3
Michael woke up at the apartment that he always woke up in. He was relieved to not have to go to work and more than a little relieved that Sarah had already gone off to the Mall herself. He went about his normal morning routine doing things that most people did in the morning. After eating his bowl of frosted Corn Nuggets he looked around his apartment and felt a sense of claustrophobic dread. He needed to get out. Where could he go? He could always go to South Atrophy but it was pretty much the same as where he was. Maybe he would watch a little TV before deciding what to do. Sitting there on the couch in the middle of his square living room with the remote in his hand, he had moment. It was a great and profound realization that affects someone so deeply that it almost needs to be suppressed. In that moment with the remote in his hand about turn on the square with the blinking images inside of his square confined life he realized that he was caged. He was trapped like an animal in a zoo just like Quinn said. He was in a cage that he never saw before. His choice had been made. The television would not go on and was going to go somewhere that he had never been.
He franticly packs up enough for a couple of days. He was debating what to tell Sarah. She would be free from work tomorrow and would want to spend their free time together at the Mall. He called her cell phone and decided the only honest thing to do was to lie.
“Hello?”
“Hey I know that we had plans tomorrow but my brother Bill just called me and he’s sick. He’s not going to work today so I’m going to South Atrophy for a couple of days.” “Well, OK. He really needs a girlfriend to take care of him. Where would you be without me baby?”
“Where indeed! Alright, I’ll see you soon.”
“You’re such a good brother, baby. I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you to.”
He should have felt worse for deceiving his partner, but he didn’t. He should have had a clear destination in mind but he didn’t. Instead he got in his car and went directly to a gas station and bought something that he never had in his life: a map. He looked at the roads cris-crossing the state and decided to go north. All of the towns that he had ever heard of were on the major highways including his own. He would go north until he was almost out of the state and then he would go on one of the small roads until he found a place unlike any he had ever been to. Adventure was a good motivator. Maybe after he’d seen something different he could go back to his life refreshed. Maybe after his odd craving had been satisfied he could resume his relationship without lying. Maybe he would stop having his restless thoughts… maybe, maybe, maybe,
The highway and the towns off of it looked much the same through the first tank of gas. Michael was overcome with some bizarre combination of anxious fear and excitement when he had gone far enough to a point that he had never been to. He was so excited when pulled into a gas station that he naively thought that the people might be a little different or have some type of new accent. He paid for his gas inside of the vacant station just to talk to talk to the attendant. “Hey there… um, this might seem like a strange question but I noticed that there were exits for the Mall and I was wondering what was past the Mall.”
“What do you mean what’s past the Mall? There’s restaurants, stores, gas stations and then there is another Mall, just like anywhere,” said the attendant.
“But what’s it like to live here?”
“I don’t know. It’s alright, it’s just like anywhere I guess.”
Michael paid for his gas and again drove onward to new possibilities albeit a little more disillusioned. By the time he had gone through another tank of gas, he was very far form North Atrophy. Everything seemed the same from the highway, so he decided to get off an exit and drive through one of the towns. Disillusionment was turning into despair as he was confronted with an almost identical landscape to the world that he has been presented with thus far.
Soon enough he came to his exit to the small country route that would take him far away from the highway. Daylight was at the end of it’s routine and the nighttime made the distance seem all the more real. Michael was a little scared to be out of his natural environment. He felt alone and forgotten as if the world moved on without him. It was a subtle shift form light to darkness, it happened when you weren’t paying attention to it. His winding country road seemed to be taking him to a new place. It seemed like an alien planet when twisted and turned up hills. There was a town 50 miles ahead according to a road sign. He was thinking that he would stay the night in the mysterious t
own. Food was now top priority. Maybe there would be a restaurant that he had never heard of. Maybe he would try something new and meet some interesting people…maybe, maybe, maybe.
When he arrived at the town of Ellisville, he was heartbroken. Nothing was different from the world that he had been presented with at birth. The main road that went through the town was almost identical to the road in his town. The stores and restaurants were all the same and the road inevitably lead to The Mall. Hunger was his priority right now so he went to the place that made the sense.
The food court being almost identical to the one his Mall at home was expected by Michael. When he got the same meal that he usually got on his lunch break, it was exactly the same. His original plan upon pulling into town was to stay there but after his time in the food court, he knew that he had to move one and find something different. It was back in the car and further down the road. He passed through the town of Jamesburg, a town almost identical to Ellisville. He stopped for gas is the town of Lincoln but there was not much else that he was interested in there as it was an identical sister city of Jamesburg. By the time he got to Bechel, he was exhausted and disheartened. It was all the same. All of the stores were closed and no one was on the road. He needed to go somewhere just to get out of the car. One place was open. The intercom announcements heralded his entrance into the food court.
Mall Land Page 3