Ghost Mall
Nanuet Mall in Rockland, New York is populated by ghosts. While driving away, I noticed a palimpsest left behind on the stone outside of the mall for a store or restaurant. The cursive-like script is for a name that looks like "Baicon" or "Boscon" - you can't really tell anymore, and it wouldn't matter anyway because the store is gone.
Half of the mall is eerily empty, devoid of the stores that would breathe life into the mall. The stores that are left have put up banners with large fonts screaming about clearance sales, "everything must go". Yes, everything must go, nothing lasts, very philosophical, not the sort of sentiment one would expect to find at a mall. The clearance sales include 70% off engagement rings and $3 ugly shirts with screeching patterns.
You know how those zombie movies emphasize the utter emptiness of the Post Apocalypse, the silence of the streets as one lone survivor shouts "Hellooooo?" into the darkness? Well, that's what the mall is like, it's like those zombie movies, except real. The afternoon sunlight was an incongruity in this empty space where I was the only potential shopper (and I didn't have a wallet on me), where the escalators had been shut down because there was no one to shop and no stores open if someone foolish enough stumbled into certain sections of the mall. Empty. Silent. Dead.
I walked down one entire deserted wing to find a lone radio station at the end pouring Sinatra into the empty air. There was only one other person I could see, and this melancholy soul had disappeared after I turned around from peering into the empty radio station. The sign in the window said "On Air" but I wondered what ghost had chosen the song, had pressed the "on" button, had put the sign in the window.
The empty display windows reminded me of the time my mother had taken us to an uncle's apartment in Seoul. The cab driver warned us to shut our eyes; the fastest route was through a shady district. I peeked over my mother's clenched eyes and saw glass windows to shallow rooms. And then the scantily-dressed mannequins started moving. The women were leering at the prepubescent children in the taxicab.
I used to like shopping before that. I don't enjoy it now.
Half of the mall is eerily empty, devoid of the stores that would breathe life into the mall. The stores that are left have put up banners with large fonts screaming about clearance sales, "everything must go". Yes, everything must go, nothing lasts, very philosophical, not the sort of sentiment one would expect to find at a mall. The clearance sales include 70% off engagement rings and $3 ugly shirts with screeching patterns.
You know how those zombie movies emphasize the utter emptiness of the Post Apocalypse, the silence of the streets as one lone survivor shouts "Hellooooo?" into the darkness? Well, that's what the mall is like, it's like those zombie movies, except real. The afternoon sunlight was an incongruity in this empty space where I was the only potential shopper (and I didn't have a wallet on me), where the escalators had been shut down because there was no one to shop and no stores open if someone foolish enough stumbled into certain sections of the mall. Empty. Silent. Dead.
I walked down one entire deserted wing to find a lone radio station at the end pouring Sinatra into the empty air. There was only one other person I could see, and this melancholy soul had disappeared after I turned around from peering into the empty radio station. The sign in the window said "On Air" but I wondered what ghost had chosen the song, had pressed the "on" button, had put the sign in the window.
The empty display windows reminded me of the time my mother had taken us to an uncle's apartment in Seoul. The cab driver warned us to shut our eyes; the fastest route was through a shady district. I peeked over my mother's clenched eyes and saw glass windows to shallow rooms. And then the scantily-dressed mannequins started moving. The women were leering at the prepubescent children in the taxicab.
I used to like shopping before that. I don't enjoy it now.