The Arcana Of Shopping Centers

It's one of those things that most people don't notice, or if they do, they don't mention it. Assuming, of course, that it exists, which some would say it doesn't.

Walking down the big shopping center on the edge of town, I told my companion to stop.
"Do you feel that?" I asked, hopefully.
He looked around, considering.
"yes" he said.
"well, what does it feel like?"
"like something important happened here."

There was nothing special about the place where we were standing. It was a nondescript spot toward the far end, somewhere between Petsmart and Ross dress-for-less. The shop-space nearest us was empty, and being that this was a fairly new shopping center, may never have been occupied at all. It was an unlikely place for happenings of importance, past or present.

I've long been fascinated by shopping centers, and it's nothing to do with shopping. There is something about them that haunts me. Maybe it's all the sharp edges and corridors and odd empty corners. One feels (well, I feel) some immeasurably distant past is there. Some sort of lost hope, maybe. An eternal lonely longing that settles in the eaves, regardless of all the people milling about below.

 

Perhaps it's the geometry of the place that evokes this feeling. Architecture that suggests hidden needs that might be fulfilled. There is a reason that psychologists are used to help design shopping malls. It's all meant to direct and disorient, whatever will lead the customers to buying and spending more. Personally, though, I've had my doubts about this being the reason for my own reaction, as these mysterious feelings never lead me to think about shopping. They only make me question the nature of reality instead. 

I know from working at one of the big retail centers that they are prime places for unusual happenings. We'd get vertigo walking down the hallways or get lost coming back from lunch. There would be portentous conversations with complete strangers, flickering lights, ghosts in the storerooms. Mannequins would stare at us blankly. Outside, on those slow, hot days when the only sound was the echo of pigeons' wings, one of the payphones might ring as you walked by. If you answered, god only knew what you might hear; someone singing, or a staticky robot voice reeling off numbers.

One evening not long ago, I stopped to peer though a moon-shaped structure, not too far from where we'd had the conversation at the beginning of this post. There was a small breeze blowing dust and leaves around the sidewalk. I looked down and noticed half a dozen small leaf-devils whirling at the base of the wall - the angle must have been just right for it. I remembered that dust devils and whirlwinds create their own electrical and magnetic fields, and I wondered how many other odd little winds were bouncing around all these spaces, invisible to the eye, but affecting our minds and bodies in unexpected ways.

Then again, I also remembered the old tales that whirlwinds are wandering spirits, passing through on their travels.

Either way,  all I know for sure is that the world (and the occasional shopping center) can be mysterious and infinitely strange.