There are things he cannot see.
There are things that transpire beyond his recognition. So many doors. So many
windows. So many streams all running their courses hither and yon. Ever onward
the flow goes, pausing in eddies, sweeping swiftly along the banks. He stands
amid it all letting it wash over him like the constant assault of water shapes
and polishes smooth rough stones. He lets out a breath taking it all in; taking
in the chaos, the tumult.
Before him
stands the epic swilling of humanity manifested in a mall food court. Even
here, in the dying husk of suburban ideals the expanse is properly occupied.
Shoppers sit in pairs or groups sipping Starbucks or nibbling cinnamon buns
wrapped in greasy napkins soaked with oil. Grains of sugar grace many a table.
All is light. Fluorescent and natural light illuminates the enclosure ensuring
that no corner goes darkened either in space or in the human heart. All is
seen. All is open. All is illuminated. No deception, no guise, no ruse, only
the unabashedly materialistic aims of retailers. There is honesty in that, he
thinks.
Yet it is not
shopping that draws him out on a golden autumn day. It is not the allure of
some unmet need or purchase that beckons.
He watches as
the stream of humanity parts before him and he ascends a set of four stairs,
freshly waxed and buffed. No stone left unturned. He sees roughly the outline
of his own form crudely reflected in the polished tile. As he takes each set he
observes the obscure points hanging lights mirrored back at him like passing
streetlights on a foggy night. Each step resonates with a satisfying click of
his heels upon the floor. Somehow he finds fullness in each step; each hollow
reverberation.
He is tall,
6’4”. At fourteen he was already nearly 6”. He wonders if that in some way has
shaped his demeanor. Perhaps, had he been a shorter man, 5’6” or 5’8” he would
have developed differently. How might height affect one’s view of the world? He
considers writing this down. However, he notes that he has had this thought before.
Somewhere this surely is scribbled in the margins of some other notebook stored
on some dusty shelf; intricately denoted but falling prey to moth and rust,
where man can break in and steal. All is fleeting, he muses.
His name is
Peter and he is twenty-seven years old. He could hardly be described as fit yet
he was also not altogether obese. He was the equivalent of the American
average. He’d never lifted a weight in his life but his biceps yet had a
well-maintained appearance. A lucky genetic advantage, he mused.
He begins by
selecting a table otherwise unoccupied and proceeds to sit, setting his
backpack on the floor beside. From where he sits he can look out on the western
arm of the mall. He sees the Godiva outlet, an L.L. Bean, and Papyrus, a luxury
greeting card retailer. There is moderate traffic up and down the aisle ways;
shoppers proceeding to and fro clutching purses and glossy bags, keeping their
eyes always on the floor in front of them, on their feet moving like vicious
blurry engines.
He wonders how
long the institution known as ‘the shopping mall’ will continue to exist.
During the growth of the suburbs the mall became the symbol of economic
development and cultural utility. The needs of the people, once met by a dozen
small stores, became optimized into the shopping mall and the supermarket. Big
box stores grew from this desire for efficacy. Now however with the advent of
online retailers, the purchasing power has become fractured again with the ease
of obtaining an item from a specialty retailer without the need to seek out a
brick-and-mortar store to find it. Even more powerful is the ability for
consumers to avoid any unnecessary interaction which for many is a desirable
advantage. Yet, paradoxically, the artisanal movement seeks to promote those
exact things: customer interaction with the producer and locally produced
products. In both of these scenarios, the shopping mall is doomed. It loses its
advantage of having all the desired items in one place to the internet while
for those desiring personal connection and sustainability it is often viewed as
a nameless, impersonal husk; a cavernous corporation sucking the life from
individuals, taking away the very core of what it means to be human.
Here, too, in
the breadbasket of the Great Lakes region, the small towns which once sustained
it were dying a slow, protracted death. Mainly due to the corporatization of
large scale farming operations, the small farmer was being increasingly
pressured to sell out and move to the larger towns. Kalamo, Vermontville,
Nashville all once sent their teens in to flood the aisles with teenage angst
and expendable income. Now, the clientele consisted of mainly local shoppers.
Dappled autumn
sunlight streams in from a cloudy skylight and in it the man feels the comfort
of the season. Stores display the muted natural colors of fall. Cut out leaves
and window clings adorn the many glass panels. All is decorated for the season.
It has always been his favorite, he muses. Even now he can smell the freshly
cut fields where combines idle expelling their exhaust into the waiting sky. He
sees farmers warming their hands beside fires and swapping stores of better
times; better harvests. In all there is a sense of yearning; yearning for
better days, better harvests. It seeps from the ground, from the trees, from
the sky--- a sense of loss. What it is exactly he cannot quite grasp. They
themselves cannot grasp. A void; an aborted future perhaps leaving an aching
hole; a nameless expanse they seek to fill with story and recollection. They’ll
cast their votes for politicians from bigger cities promising to return to the
greatness of an American era that never existed and eat heartily of the
promises of the rosy remembrances of their own lost youth. They’ll stretch out
their hands to take hold of some illusion; a mirage. The man does not fault
them for this exactly. He can feel their loss; their desperation. He feels the
ache in his own bones; the ringing emptiness in his own chest. So he looks at
the shoppers treading the tile with a sense of understanding, a sense of
camaraderie. He sees them as the children of promises lost. He sees even the
mall as the decrepit skeleton of a nation’s dreams and assurances. He sees in
receipts and bags the shallow reality of the promises of the past. Here, life
continues with the countenance of familiarity but is truly only the dry,
flaking exterior of desperation, of a changing world longing to be mourned. He
feels it. He feels their pain; their unacknowledged anxiety. He wants to
envelop it; to consume it within himself. He knows he cannot yet it nourishes
him too, feeding his spirit.
Crossing and
uncrossing his legs he begins to observe those who occupy the tables around
him. Pair of twentysomething women sit with their eyes focused on their Panda
Express which they pick at with plastic forks. Neither makes eye contact and
they eat in silence. One, a regal looking blonde, wears several gaudy rings
that belie her otherwise distinguished appearance. A Forever 21 bag rests at
her feet.
Her companion
wears a mask of absolute indifference. She consumes her Black Pepper chicken as
if it were some type of obligatory nutritional supplement that must at all
costs be consumed. She appears to take no pleasure it in.
Why is she
even bothering to eat? the man wonders. Is the dining experience merely a
utilitarian ritual? What unspoken disagreement leads these two to dine in
silence? Surely they came here unbidden. No parent or children surround them to
implicate a familial responsibility. Two friends attend a mall yet each
maintains a peculiar indifference toward the other. Was there a disagreement?
These questions flood the man’s mind. Questions he is unable to answer.
Questions he will never know the
answer to. Secrets that will lie like bloated corpses in an unmarked grave.
After a
moment, a young professional looking man sets down on the ledge that serves to
separate the upper level of the mall from the recessed food court. He crossed
his legs, right over left and settled himself against the cement puncheon,
pulling a freshly purchased book from his bag. Peter hears the crisp cover
crack as the young man opens it for the first time. It is Stephen King’s Song
of Susanna. He smiles.
“Getting close
to the end, eh?” Peter asks leaning to his left to address the man. He plants
his right hand on his ankle to stabilize himself.
“Huh?”
“The Dark
Tower, you’re getting close to the end?”
“Oh,” the man
says with an air of recognition. His demeanor changes as if a veil is lifted.
“yeah, only two more books to go.”
“Have you read
them before or is this your first time?”
“First time,
my brother read them years ago and is always raving about them. They’re making
a movie of the first once I think, so I figured that if there was a time to
read them, it was now. My brother has pretty good taste.” He says this last bit
with a bit of vagueness.
“So, I don’t
mean to pry,” Peter says lifting himself up and turning his chair around to
face the young man, “what order did you read them in? I mean did you read The
Wind Through the Keyhole where it’s placed in the series or are you waiting
till the end to read it?”
“I read it in
order.”
“See, I wish I
could go back and do that. I finished the series before Wind Through the
Keyhole came out so I had to read
it afterwards. I wish I could have gone back completely blind like you did and
read it in order. It really changes the way you read and interpret the book.”
“I don’t know.
It wasn’t my favorite anyway.”
“What’s your
favorite?”
“Right now? I
think Wizard and Glass. It felt really satisfying to hear Roland’s
backstory. I’m Branch, by the way.”
“Peter,” he
says shaking the man’s hand.
The two men
now face each other as equals, as if linked by some ineffable force. Their countenances
are transformed and there is a kindred spirit between the two. Peter makes a
mental note to write this down later. Branch puts down the novel.
“Yeah, I
always thought that Wizard had the best self-contained story. Though Wolves
was pretty good in that regard too.”
“My brother
says Wolves is his favorite.”
“Your brother
seems to have really good taste” Peter says with an air of pregnant
expectation. He is leading and he knows it. Does Branch notice?
“Sometimes I
guess. He tends to get into horror more than I do. I mean I like The Dark Tower
series but I’m not really into King’s other stuff. You know, Pet Cemetery,
The Shining.”
“Well, we’re
all into different stuff I guess. Is he older or younger than you?”
“Huh?”
“Your
brother.”
“Oh, younger.
Three years younger, but I never really felt like he was younger.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, in high
school he pretty much hung out with my friends or the other kids in my class.
So he was always around me. He just felt like the same age as me.”
“Oh.”
“It wasn’t bad or anything, we’ve got a good relationship. It’s good. We
operate pretty much as equals. Even our parents treat us like there’s no
difference in age.” A pause. “What do you do?”
“Me? Oh, well
I try different things. Right now I’m working for hardware store in Battle
Creek. Overnight stock. I like it. I’ve got a team of 3 or 4 that I manage.
You?”
“DNR up in
Lansing.”
“Oooh, a
conservation officer.”
“Nothing like
that really. I’m basically an administrative assistant.”
“Still. Do you
like the outdoors?”
“Like the
outdoors? Yeah I guess so. I’m not really much of an outdoorsy guy though. I
mostly took the job because it was the best job available. It’s not like it’s a
passion of mine or anything.”
“What is a passion of yours?”
“Look how deep
you got with that. Um. I guess entertainment. I went to MSU for journalism for
a while but I dropped out and never picked it back up.”
“What did you
want to do with it?”
“When I was
younger I had dreams of writing editorials. I always felt kind of confined by
reporting in general. You know, just giving the facts. It always felt like there
was no creativity in it. But editorials I think I could write.”
“You should
try again. You’re obviously still passionate about it. Look at how you said ‘I
think I could write’. Present tense.”
“I guess
you’re right” he averts his eyes. Perhaps he is ashamed. Ashamed of what?
Because he didn’t finish school? Peter wants to know; needs to know, but how to
ask? He can’t quite formulate the words to present the question. The silence
lingers. He knows the moment is passing. He wants to save it. But how? He has
pushed too deep. He knows it now. Too deep. Delving too deep.
“What do you…”
Peter begins, but is cut short as the man begins to stand up. Picking up again
the novel.
“Hey, I need
to get going. I’ve got to meet my girlfriend at 1. Nice talking to you though,
Peter.”
The shake
hands again. Peter leans forward.
“Yeah. Nice”
he says as Branch makes his way up the three steps and back up onto the
storefront level of the mall. Peter watches as he exits through the eastern
wing of the mall.
Peter is
alone. Again. He turns his chair back toward the table and rests with his
elbows pressed against the surface until he can feel the grain of the wood, its
skeletal canyons molding rough patterns into his flesh. He presses until he
feels the slight sensation of pain, and then relents. He closes his eyes and
lets the sounds of his surroundings wash over him. He tries to isolate and
articulate each one. The whir of a blender over at a smoothie shop. Indistinct
conversation. Indeterminable wheels on the tile--- a miniscule squeak. A
rolling basket perhaps? The moderately melodic whispers of music emanating
behind shop walls. Always. Always. Always, the gentle drone of the air
conditioner which has replaced the rush of traffic, and, before that, the
whooshing of wind through treetops as the ubiquitous omnipresent refrain of
these times.
He lets the
sound wash over him; lets it fill him, every pore, like air filling a vacuum.
He prays for rebirth. Prays for the strength to persevere. He prays for
freedom. He prays. He listens for the non-silence; that which would-be silence.
He stares in the darkness that is his sealed eyelids. He traces the patterns
and colors that swim across his vision; visions of immaterial electrical
impulse.
He opens his
eyes, his suddenly exhausted eyes. He tries to iron his thoughts flat like a
board. Smooth the edges. Smooth the wrinkles. Maintain the balance. Some type
of balance. He feels the void lingering, just upon the barriers of his
consciousness, always present, always waiting, waiting for just the right
moment, the right chink in the armor. No, he cannot relent. He must persevere.
He must run the race set out before him.
Unsure of how
long he has remained motionless, Peter looks around. Not much time has passed.
Minutes perhaps this time? Some of the same diners still remain, now sipping
from smoothies or nursing the barest remains of their lunches. The girls have
gone however, their silence broken perhaps by some light comment or familiar
memory. And where to? No indication. It makes no difference. Gone. Simply gone.
The lunch
crowd had dwindled but there seemed to be more shoppers actually walking the
halls. Peter rose and threw his backpack over his shoulder, not truly putting
it on but not carrying it. He pushed in his chair with a firm but calculated
amount of force in spite of the fact that nearly all of the other fifty or so
chairs lay about in varying degrees of discombobulation. This one chair; this
chair will be clean, will be perfect.
It is easy,
Peter thinks, to get lost in the magnitude and the perspective of life; to get
overwhelmed by the vastness and ignore the minute things. That is folly, he
concludes, it is only in the individual thing that there is any true perspective.
He tries to imagine a sky full of stars such as he had seen as a child. The
awe-inspiring and crushing reality of one fraction of the universe, the
fragment visible from northern Michigan on a summer night in late July. That
tiny sliver of reality threatens to eclipse all of life. Compared to that
profundity of existence, of what import can one tiny pin-prick of creation
maintain? What prominence can any one life have? With all its machinations and
memory and feelings and doubt, what can it compare to the grandness of the
grand? He knows the answer. He has memorized it; internalized. It is no rote
creed though; he knows it deep down in his bones, in the very core of his
person. The One does matter. It is in fact the only thing that gives the
grandness its wonder. He must seek the Oneness; the overwhelming uniqueness of
it all, never relegating action to merely words spoken or deeds done. One chair
it may be. One chair amid fifty. But it is one chair that bespeaks the dignity
of all.
He walks as if
trespassing a world that is not his own, passing shops from which he seemed as
far removed as a foreign country. It seemed impossible to him that so many
clothing retailers even existed let alone made a profit. He himself had rarely
shopped for new clothes over the last ten years of his adult life. What little
he had acquired came from the Salvation Army or as gifts at Christmases or
birthdays. Attire had never held much sway over him. In fact, he rarely looked
in a mirror long enough to form an opinion on his style. Still it was not as if
he had pronounced judgement on those who availed themselves to style and
accessories. It was simply removed from his own sphere. There were some grey
areas of interpretation after all.
“Hey, take a
look at these watches” a voice called in a half-hearted sales pitch.
Peter turned
to see a kiosk employee, who himself sported a burnished timepiece, beckoning
him toward the glass cases. Peter stopped but made no effort to approach.
“You
interested?” the sharp-dressed man inquired.
“Not
particularly.”
Peter resumed
his pace.
He came to the
end of the east wing where the halls opened up into a kind of a gathering area
just in front of JC Penny’s. There were a number of benches set in a
semi-circle where a diverse group of people had settled. A mother leaned
forward looking in at her small child in a stroller. Another watched her two
children run about in the guarded expanse.
Peter paused
to wonder at the world these children would grow up in; the world they would
experience. How different would it be from their parents’? Not only in specific
differences in events but even deeper at the level of perception. How would
they perceive the world? How would a generation raised with computers as
functional technology interpret their existence? Would such technological
augmentation change their perceptions of information or pain or beauty? He had
always been struck at how much our own understanding of the world rests upon
our personal (and biased) observations and experiences. What would these
children see? Or perhaps more pointedly, how would they see their world?
On the other
half of the crescent-shaped row of benches a woman in a sharply tailored suit
sat sipping on a coffee and reading a tablet. Every inch of her spoke of
control and professionalism. Every hair and eyelash had been meticulously
managed.
Peter
approached and sat on the bench next to hers.
Retrieving
from his bag a small, black notebook, he began to write furiously, utilizing
his knee to stabilize himself. He finds himself fighting off tremors that seem
to originate at the very core of his being. Every ounce of resolve he can
muster he focuses on remaining calm. He waits, savoring each anticipatory
breath, feeling it engorge his waiting lungs with cool, sterile air.
At last, he
can abstain no longer.
“What’s going
on in the world?” Peter asks, desperately striving to sound causal.
“Nothing
much,” the woman replies without missing a beat. “You know, wars and rumors of
war. Same ole stuff.” Her don’t leave the tablet hovering about ten inches from
her face.
“It’s a crazy
world.”
“No crazier
than it’s always been. We just have more access to it. Not that that makes it
any better.”
“Do you really
believe that?” Peter asks. The question is genuine. He has wondered that for a
long time. In the darkest hours of the night he wonders it. When the weight of
the world seems pressed down upon his shoulders and the pain in his mind is a
swirling, stinging sensation he wonders and wonders as the embrace of sleep
seems lost; a tantalizing echo. In the darkness he wonders.
The woman
hesitatingly puts down the tablet. Her eyes are a rich sea of green seemingly
flecked with darker browns. Her age is indeterminate. She seemed to be the type
of woman who might have been twenty-five or forty. A cadence of beauty
surrounded her masking the effects of age. He is struck.
“I think so.
All the media we have it makes us think that the horrible events of the world
are far more commonplace than they are. Fifty years ago, a hundred years ago,
we knew the events that affected us: the events of our town or our state or
maybe one or two national events and that was it. We weren’t troubled with more
than that. Horrible things were happening but we didn’t know about them. Now we
look back and say ‘aww if we would only get back to the good old days; if we
could just make America great again.’ It was just the same back then. Though we
were unaware of it.”
“You seem like
you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this.”
“I teach
Introduction to Electronic Media, it’s kind of my thing. More than that though,
I just really get into it.” She makes a conscious effort to make eye contact
with Peter, something that she has conspicuously avoid until this point. “I’m
Annette.”
“Peter Wolff.”
“Like, Peter
and the?” she asks fighting a grin.
“I guess.
Parents didn’t really think that one through.”
“Maybe you
just looked like a Peter?”
They both
laugh.
“What do you
do Peter the Wolf?”
“Um, I’m kind
of a writer.”
“Ah, that
explains it. Great nom de plume though. No one will ever believe it’s your real
name.”
“I guess.”
He is
alternately uneasy and assured. The woman has that effect on him. He
desperately wants to rest in the comfortability that this woman seems to elicit
in him. Though he has conversed with many people on many, many occasions, he
has never felt this level of rapport. For a moment it breaks his concentration.
For a moment.
“Where are you
a professor?” Peter staggers.
“Eastern,
though technically I’m a lecturer.”
“What are you
doing out here?”
“I’ve got
Thursdays off and I’ve got a wedding on Saturday in Grand Rapids, an old
college roommate.”
“Oh, well
thanks for stopping in on our little town.”
“Well, it
really was just for gas but I made some time to linger.”
“I’m glad.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She eyes him
warily now. Her countenance seems to alter. Slivers of distrust seem to flash
in those beguiling eyes.
“I’m only
stopping in for a few hours. I’m meeting a friend for dinner.”
“Oh. It’s good
you have a wedding to celebrate,” he flounders, “with all that’s going on in
the world.”
“Yeah,” she
begins tentatively, “the only way to cope with the evil in the world is by
maintaining the good; celebrating the good.”
“You really
believe that?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I wish I
could. I’ve seen too much, I think.”
“That’s rough.
Not that I know what you’ve seen. But it’s rough to keep the faith when you’ve
been hurt,” Annette says with renewed compassion. Peter winces. “Without some
standard of morality, the only basis for action is one’s own desires. We all
know, either from ourselves or from observing others, that if every resorts to
rampant hedonism, that evil will grow. When everyone seeks the best for
themselves only then the world very quickly descends into anarchy.”
“It’s not that
easy to deny yourself,” Peter says quietly, averting his eyes.
“Agreed, but
without it, we enter into a spiral of destruction. We see how that’s working in
the world; in this country. When we seek only to elevate ourselves we by
necessity denigrate others.”
He cannot
bring himself to raise his eyes. He can only stare helplessly at his own worn
shoes as if the weather-beaten Keds held in them some glimmer of absolution. He
closes his eyes momentarily and relishes in the relief that the nothingness
brings; no fear; no temptation; no pain; no regret. Yet even as he revels in
this one moment of pure ecstasy, he is also carefully calculating how long he
can keep his eyes closed without causing any social complications. One second,
two seconds, three seconds. He removes his glasses and rubs his eyes simply to
give himself a few more milliseconds of peace. Four seconds, five.
Fighting the
desire within himself he asks “how close are you to your roommate?”
“I’m sorry?”
she responds, affronted.
“Your old
college roommate, how close are you? Were you? I mean what school did you go
to?” the tenor of his voice echoes with self-loathing; pervasive and
all-encompassing shame.
“Listen,” she
begins.
“No, I’m
sorry. I... I just was wondering about the wedding, I mean how well did you
know them. Um, like are you staying with friends? You said that already. Sorry.
Is the wedding in a church? Where’s the reception?”
“I, um, I have
to go.” She rises, clutching the tablet and her purse against her side. “It
was, nice, talking to you Peter. I’ve got to go. You know. Have a great day.”
She turns to
leave. Peter hears the click of her shoes against the tile floor. He does not
watch her go. He knows that she is gone. He knows that she will turn once she
reaches a safe distance to look back to see what he is doing. He does not move.
He does not want to give her the satisfaction. He is not desperate. No, he is desperate.
He feels the
familiar disappointment.
He feels the
sting of habitual failure.
In through,
the nose he breathes, holding his breath until his lungs reach the point of
exhaustion, when his entire body is crying out for relief, it is here in this
moment that he knows the meaning of control. He holds in his will the power of
life and death. With every cell screaming out in desperation he releases the
now useless carbon dioxide through his mouth and pulls another gasping lungful
into his yearning body. It is here that he knows the satisfaction of having
done something to the fullest. Though trivial and inconsequential he knows what
it is to have dominion over something even if it be his own body. He knows what
it is to do something to the fullest.
He opens his
eyes.
The sting of
failure still burns strong; the failure to do the best he was possible capable
of doing. Yet he is satiated. He can trace the outline of the glimmer of hope
in the air around him. He knows he can go on for another day; that he can try
again; knows that he must try again.
Tomorrow is another day.
