Unanchored

The facade above the automatic doors gives absolutely no warning that this is one of those malls where one entrance sends you straight into a store, forcing you to bear the awkwardness of being inside a store with no intention to buy anything.

My frustration quickly turns into one of those feelings that’s impossible to describe but so unimportant no one tries. The store is closed. Sparse lights cast sharp shadows out of empty pedestals and blank signs. Inexplicably curious, I spin a clothes-rack and watch the doubled shadows dance. I’ve been driving through rain for six hours—of course I’m cranky.

I’m here for wine, because Tiffany didn’t have enough left for a true reunion. She followed up her call with a text reading “snacks!” and then another to say their fan had been broken for a week. But the sooner I get through this, the sooner I’ll be getting drunk and talking hometown gossip on the couch with my sister.

I step out onto a balcony of scuffed glass. The only light up here comes down from the once-entrances of closed stores, glinting off the shutters and staring cold daggers at my warm human body. I don’t belong here.

The escalator whirrs like it has a limp. Footprints muddy up the metal walls, conjuring an image of Tiffany attached to Mom’s hand, kicking at the wall impatiently and wishing she could just run ahead—what was the point if you couldn’t get there twice as fast as normal stairs? It’s comforting to imagine another human here.

I contemplate running back up against the escalator—it was a childhood dream, and there’s no one around to see…

But I should hurry. My boots click cavernously up to the tacky octagonal ceiling. The skylight up there is too narrow to see anything but bright blue sky, but that hope of daylight is enough for the tree reaching up from a fountain in the middle of the hall. It would seem tame anywhere else, but in a mall it looked gnarled and unkempt. In between leaves so stiff and waxy I could believe they were plastic, I see a tiny brown bird.

It hops down to the fountain’s spongy terracotta rim to see the still water within—clear, but clutter with a handful of leaves and hints of algae where the bottom meets the bathroom-tile walls.

“She’s been here forever,” a security guard says from behind me. The bench he sits on is just a little yellower than all the other wood in the architecture. “Ceiling’s too tall to shoo her out.” I appreciate the frantic little hint of nature. 

From above, I’d anticipated more open shops. There’s a tiny stall selling glass figurines of out-of-season holiday mascots, and a warm but fragile light seeps out of an off-brand clothing store. A poorly photoshopped banner advertises a sub shop that’s closed for the night. That’s alright, because the pictures they’ve included of their own food make it look revolting. Except I don’t remember it being night. Maybe it closed early because it’s a Sunday, but I don’t remember that either.

I shake the idea out of my head. “Hey,” I ask, “is there a place here that sells fans?”

“Yeah,” he says, “next floor down.” He gestures lazily to escalators I hadn’t seen from above.

I step daintily onto the tread, like I’m stepping from a plank into a  boat. It twitches underneath me. The machine swallows steps one by one until I’m perilously close to being dragged under myself. At the last moment I stumble out onto the tiles. I smile as I fling my arms out for balance. When I was a kid, I loved this kind of flirting with danger.

The floor checkers out beige and cream, only stopping for this level’s fountain. It’s constructed identically, but the tree grasps less energetically upward, too focused on clinging to its own foliage. Its lack of success is evident in the coating of leaves on the surface of the water. The bird flies down from the balcony and stares at me from a branch that’s broken and half-submerged.

A jumble of faded electronic music floats over from an arcade with a dingy black carpet. In front of me are two stores designed to appeal to opposite types of teenage girl. The left is pink and white and a curled sign in the window advertises ear piercings, the right is all red and gray and black and the racks sell graphic tees with references that are decades out of date. I was always the edgy sister, but one time—

One time my sister—

I can’t remember her name, only my youthful indignation when I lost a bet and had to sit in one of those salon chairs and get my ears outfitted with white rhinestones.

I turn away. There’s a shop in the opposite corner that looks like a convenience store. I take care to only step on the cream tiles; we used to race as children, sticking to one color and accusing each other of stepping over the lines whenever we lost.

“Do you have any—” I adjust my expectations, “uh, beer?”

“I can check,” he says, looking like he’s just woken up. He examines the refrigerators with dull eyes.

I myself see only scattered cans of diet soda, so I say, “It’s okay. Can I just buy chips?”

“Let me ring you up.” I reach for my wallet, but my pants don’t have pockets. He hands me the chips anyway. “Thank you for shopping with us.” He smiles. “Have a nice day.”

“Uh—do you think anywhere around here does sell beer?”

“Floor down, I think.” He’s nodding off again.

I wobble on the threshold of the next escalator, but I can’t drive away with nothing. It will make a good story for when—

I rub my forehead, hoping to bring the memory to the surface.

This floor’s tree is dead. The fountain is empty. The bird chirps, frantic. But in front of me I see the comforting wide doors and fluorescent blue glow of a big old small-business destroying box store behemoth. Everything I need will be there. Wine. Snacks. Fan.

I step forward, unknowingly putting my foot on another escalator. I realize quickly this isn’t worth it. Something is wrong and I need to leave. I achieve that lifelong dream of running up the down elevator but I make no progress. The place above me expands and below me contracts until I’m on plain white tile and laughing at how much I’ve managed to psych myself out.

It’s just a store, with full shelves and signs that are clean and up-to-date. I look between the shopping carts and baskets and think that maybe I can even just carry it all in my hands. But the weight I imagine carrying is formless. Faced with everything I could possibly want, I can’t even remember what I came here for.

The bird lands on a self checkout machine, then flies back up to the next floor. Realizing we’re the only two living things in this little world, I follow it. To my relief, the box store gives me up with little issue. I shiver as I pass the dead tree, and release the tension in my shoulders when I hit the next set of escalators. There’s no man in the shop now; the ear piercing sign has fallen to the ground.

I hopscotch the checkered floor, confident that I’ll remember why soon enough. One more floor up and the security guard is gone and the light is flickery and the sub shop smells as rotten as it looks in the pictures. And at last, I’m where I entered, and everything is as dead as before.

There should be an exit. I circle the balcony, then ascend, hoping I’ve just forgotten which floor it was. Again and again, I find nothing. When I retrace my steps, I find none of the stores I saw before, no variety beyond texture of shutter and the indecipherable scars left behind where signs used to be.

I stumble over to the fountain. The most brilliant sun I’ve ever seen filters down from the skylights. I sit down in the water under the tree’s perfect plastic leaves and hear the happy bubbling of the water around me. The little bird lands next to me and tilts its head. “No one left to yell at us for playing in the fountain.” I say, crushing a chip and let it perch on my hand. 

It’s singular and beautiful, the only thing like me. I pull it to my heart. Even as its wings try to flutter away, I cling on. “Just a moment, little thing,” I tell it. “You’re alive.”

I put my thumb under its neck and snap it. Living things like us don’t belong here. I plunge my head back and the water envelops me, pristine and cold.