Dead Malls—American Style

 

Have you heard of dead or dying malls?

By the time you read this you’ll probably have to look up the word “mall” on-line, on-phone, on something.

Malls, those places you used to go to buy things.  Some things you didn’t even know that you wanted. There was a feeling of anticipation, something good was about to happen.  Some discovery was about to be made.

I never-ever get that feeling when I order on-line.  I get a feeling of dread knowing that I’ll get something messed up, some code number inverted.  (That’s why I wait for my youngest cousin to come over and ask her to do it for me.  She’s not full of dread.  She likes it! She’s a child of today. But I digress.)

There’s no feeling of community when buying on-line. At least none that I can find. No bumping into people. No crowding, pushing, occasional sale-shoving, come to think of it…

But now, at the time of writing this, there are tours on-line of dead, or dying malls.  If you ever want to be depressed, take one of these (or several).  They include empty stores, dragging on-the-floor banners, outdated dates of events long past their prime.  Counters with no goods, goods with no counters. Dark, unlit corridors down which you don’t want to go for fear that you’ll never come back, not alive anyway. What’s down there?  I’m not that curious.

A really odd thing about all these malls is that someone is watering the plants.  The plants are thriving.  It’s almost as if: “Now that all those loud-mouthed, sale-shoving people are no longer here to bother us, we are free, we can breathe, we can thrive!”

These malls have really pretty names, too. But they’re sort of cliché, interchangeable, forgettable.  As a matter of fact, I’ve forgotten them.  But they lend themselves to happy meadows, pretty pastures, bovine encounters.  Wait that’s not right!  What I mean is the names evoke pleasant times ahead in pleasant surroundings, or on a dock, or a lake, even a lagoon. 

And why do they keep so many lights on, that must be costing a fortune.  But then again fewer lights mean more dark, spooky corridors!

The mall tours are viewable on a channel for streaming on your TV that has everything you’d ever want to know about anything.  Videos are taped and usually narrated by amateurs with personal critiques about the mall: “It smells musty in here; the lighting is archaic; the color theme is from the ‘70s; this place was open yesterday, I was just here.”

Dying malls have water fountain extravaganzas with water leaping irregularly into the air and then haphazardly falling downward again. There is carpeting in some sitting areas with flooring on the foot traffic paths.  There are sofas and chairs, and display carts all covered up with nothing left to display.

It's always a good sign if the escalators still work. Apparently, this has been a recurring problem in the past because of a lack of replacement parts. And sometimes there are large, windowed elevators standing ready to service a large number of passengers, should they show up.

There are play areas for children, usually shoved in the back of the mall or off to the side, out of the way.  Spinning carousels still exist, but most seem stuck in time and place, switched off and unable to perform. 

Oh, and the food courts are usually full of too many chairs to the ratio of too few tables, with one fast food restaurant in the center remaining open for business until very near the end.

I’m certain to have left something out, but that’s the general idea:  There is something dying here, soon to be dead. They say that the malls will eventually be replaced by office buildings.  Maybe they’ll have shopping on the basement level.

Available in : A Quick Read: Short-Short Stories