The Victory Plaza Mall

The only reason I know the name is because it's the only thing I can read on the kiosks. Otherwise, they're incoherent. The echo of my steps fly from beneath me up to the empty glass windows, to the plastic containers holding plastic trees, and back. I walk up the stairs, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. The wood chips in this fake flower bed look sort of like tires. I picked one up and yep, that’s a shredded piece of recycled rubber painted a shitty brown. I toss it back, it doesn't smell that great.

I remember my friend telling me about a literal word that describes this kind of place. What did he say? Spaces built for large numbers of people, spaces built with a purpose, a plan for use, but don’t seem to be in use for that. Not when they were constructed or ever. The lack of people in the space apparently confuses the human mind, and makes it feel uncomfortable, disoriented or as if it's intruding on something taboo. Kind of like how I feel, I suppose. Or how I should feel.

There's a gumball machine in the next skylight space. The pillars holding the second floor up are arranged around this odd square, now with more unneeded benches and sad fake foliage. It's oddly small in this big area, placed here almost as an afterthought. The machine is scratched up on the inside from years of little hands with quarters emptying it out and absent workers filling it back up again. The plating is a happy yellow, oddly bright in the colder natural light. 

I honestly don’t remember ever really arriving here. It’s more a callback to a few staircases back, the moment I stumbled over my own feet because I was trying to read any of the gibberish on one of the kiosks. They either once said something or they're in a different language, except for "VICTORY PLAZA MALL" emblazoned in blue at the top. God, I think I'm about to get a migraine.

Sorry, the point is, every now and then I’ll find a new checkpoint, make a new memory so I’ll be able to base how long I’ve been here. I have eight memories, I have nineteen memories, I have- shit, I guess two. My head doesn't hurt anymore. Did it hurt? There's a yellow gumball machine over there. I think last time, if there was a "last time", it was red.

Clothing store, record store, shoes, shoe shine, clothing store. That’s what must have once been in the husks of the cleaned out hollows on either side of me. The kiosks make no sense, but the signs have, or I guess had pictures, from what I can kind of make out. The stores aren’t technically open any more, the lights are off in some, and I'm not just going to breeze in if there isn't someone behind the registers in the ones that have shit in them. There’s still fully stocked shelves in some, scattered items on the floors in others, and more are just cleaned out. Most have those protection grates over them, but those are the empty ones. I could just walk right into the full stores. 

I don’t really have to though. I’m not hungry. I’m not tired. I’m not too cold or too hot. My head sort of hurts when I look too long. But, really? I don’t have any real reason to stop. I could, if I wanted to, plenty of open places to sit around here. I don't think there’s a point, I’ll just get back up and start walking again anyway. But I am lonely. This is sort of helping.

I reached some stairs, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. There's a tire smell around me that kind of turns my stomach. I think it's coming from the pots with the plastic bushes. I also think I see a candy machine in the light ahead of me. I'd imagine if there are still any gumballs inside, they're probably rock hard.

If you are here, please come find me. We can walk together.