Transmission #4
Greetings and salutations from a tiny oasis in a desert of urban decay.
I'm sitting in a secret greenspace buried deep within a vast expanse of concrete. More specifically, the old local mall.
(Malls are large buildings from the 1990s.)
My mother is having cataracts surgery down the street, and I find myself with several hours to kill. When I was young, the mall would open up early to let the elderly have a safe, warm place to exercise. The stores weren't open, but the Food Court was, and you could sit and have a cup of coffee after a doing a few laps. But this morning the mall is dark and locked up tight. Yet another simple pleasure deemed "not cost effective" in our growingly greedy world.
The enormous gray building looks like the corpse of an ancient, lifeless leviathan that has stranded itself upon a flat gray beach of asphalt. A few world-weary employees have started to trickle into the side door, giving me strange looks. I'm a little too well-dressed to be up to any criminal activity, but I am still an interloper in this strangely liminal space.
It probably doesn't help that I was talking to the pigeons earlier.
(Their initial curiosity quickly faded upon realizing that I was not in the possession of french fries.)
10 minutes later
A lone man in a truck prickled my defense mechanisms, so I'm now penning this in the safety of the ophthalmologist's overcrowded waiting room. It's a shame I had to surrender my previous spot; there were a few rose hips I'd wanted to bring back with me, but my instincts deemed they weren't worth the risk. I did score a cool rock though, which I dropped off during a quick detour to the car.
I'd grown accustomed to the brisk dawn air, and sitting here in the warm lounge has made me realize just how cold it is outside. My heart hurts for the unhoused people, who – despite not making any appearances this morning – have left evidence of their sorrowful existence all around. I'm sure I saw bedding material peeking out from behind a particularly leafy bush; and a dirty, abandoned baby shoe that came straight from a Hemingway story was perched on the sidewalk.
The clock just struck nine, and I suddenly feel overcome by fatigue. I was up at five this morning and still had no time for breakfast. The one coffee from hours ago has done all it can for me - I'm on my own now.
I can pick out my mother's voice from the din of humanity clustered here, sounding not unlike the din of sparrows clustered in the parking lot. Her hushed tones with the nurse tell me that she'll soon emerge, and so I must conclude this morning's transmission.
Until next time...
I'm sitting in a secret greenspace buried deep within a vast expanse of concrete. More specifically, the old local mall.
(Malls are large buildings from the 1990s.)
My mother is having cataracts surgery down the street, and I find myself with several hours to kill. When I was young, the mall would open up early to let the elderly have a safe, warm place to exercise. The stores weren't open, but the Food Court was, and you could sit and have a cup of coffee after a doing a few laps. But this morning the mall is dark and locked up tight. Yet another simple pleasure deemed "not cost effective" in our growingly greedy world.
The enormous gray building looks like the corpse of an ancient, lifeless leviathan that has stranded itself upon a flat gray beach of asphalt. A few world-weary employees have started to trickle into the side door, giving me strange looks. I'm a little too well-dressed to be up to any criminal activity, but I am still an interloper in this strangely liminal space.
It probably doesn't help that I was talking to the pigeons earlier.
(Their initial curiosity quickly faded upon realizing that I was not in the possession of french fries.)
10 minutes later
A lone man in a truck prickled my defense mechanisms, so I'm now penning this in the safety of the ophthalmologist's overcrowded waiting room. It's a shame I had to surrender my previous spot; there were a few rose hips I'd wanted to bring back with me, but my instincts deemed they weren't worth the risk. I did score a cool rock though, which I dropped off during a quick detour to the car.
(Some kind of stripey metamorphic artifact.)
I'd grown accustomed to the brisk dawn air, and sitting here in the warm lounge has made me realize just how cold it is outside. My heart hurts for the unhoused people, who – despite not making any appearances this morning – have left evidence of their sorrowful existence all around. I'm sure I saw bedding material peeking out from behind a particularly leafy bush; and a dirty, abandoned baby shoe that came straight from a Hemingway story was perched on the sidewalk.
The clock just struck nine, and I suddenly feel overcome by fatigue. I was up at five this morning and still had no time for breakfast. The one coffee from hours ago has done all it can for me - I'm on my own now.
I can pick out my mother's voice from the din of humanity clustered here, sounding not unlike the din of sparrows clustered in the parking lot. Her hushed tones with the nurse tell me that she'll soon emerge, and so I must conclude this morning's transmission.
Until next time...
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