The People at the Mall

They stand near the grocery store exit - the young mother carrying an enormous sack of household purchases. The grocery store is the only place in the mall they visit lately. Her little daughter stands beside her, fussing with her frock. They seem to be waiting for someone. The child keeps pointing at the cotton candy stall a few steps from them, and I see the mother refuse gently once or twice. It's clear that they're both getting very irritable. After a few minutes , the little girl asks again for the cotton candy, this time very loudly. She's almost in tears now. Her mother sets her shopping bag down and tries to take the child in her arms. As she tries to tuck back a lock of hair that has come undone from her low ponytail, she stops. With a tiny gasp, she realises that she's wearing two different earrings. She can't believe this is happening to her. How could she slack like that? A flash of shock and annoyance crosses her face, which is percieved by her child as a look of murderous rage. The child promptly starts to wail, and soon the entire lobby is filled with the sound of her crying. A few passersby look disapprovingly at the mother, who seems frozen to the spot, unable to think. Her husband comes running out the grocery store with another bag in hand, and looks at her for just a second before he grabs the distressed kid and leads her away. That one look seems to have brought the mother back to reality, and she hurries to pick her bag and follow them. 

In the sports store is a tall man of about 50. His hair slightly greying at the temples, and his back slightly hunched from working at his desk job for close to two decades. He's come to buy a winter jacket for his son, who's moving abroad next month. He walks through the Tshirt aisles, trying to be discreet as he reads the price tags on each of them. He doesn't let his son catch his surprise. He looks at his son trying on a couple different jackets. But his attention is elsewhere: he can't stop thinking about the cobwebs in his living room that his wife asked him to clear out yesterday. He knows she will have cleaned them out by now, and he feels a sharp pang of guilt. As his son leads him to the billing till with two hoodies, he thinks about the dust and the dirt. He thinks about the home he has to go back to, which doesn't stay clean no matter how many times he vacuums it. He wonders if he could have another shot at everything. Maybe if he did things differently from the start, there wouldn't be so much filth everywhere. 

On the first floor of the very same mall is a couple, window shopping. In the three years that they have been married, they have window shopped here every other weekend. They walk by the wellness store, with the scented candles and body lotions on the display carousel in the window, and the man sees his wife stop to look at them. They both know that they can't afford them. He tells her it's poison and chemicals in pretty packaging, and she turns up to face him like she really wants to believe him. They walk on by.  

And I sit here, watching them. I see all these people at the mall. I see them with their empty gaze, and imagine that they must feel like a candle wick after a breeze just blew out the flame. That they must walk around this mall with that sooty smell all around them. Do they feel like the breeze snuffed out their dreams, just as easily? See, every one of those people started out hopeful. They had big aspirations. But somehow things just kept happening to them. It was one obligation after another. One night after another of going to bed thinking about their jobs. One Monday after another of cursing the weekend for being gone so fast. Life got horribly dull. And there was nothing to look forward to. Except going to the mall.