I Dream of Malls and Death
I hopped out of the van with AJ and the baby. The scene was explosive and confusing. Football players on the west side of the lawn, along with cheerleaders using sex to help the team win the game. On the east side was a concert. Right brained kids in tight pants and scarves jumping around like five year olds after too much candy, and a considerably cooler guy on stage running around, screaming things into a microphone and pointing out girls he’d like to make his “muse” after the show.
We went into the shopping mall who’s south entryway opened up to the madness on the great lawn. It looked like Black Friday or two days before Christmas in there. People bustled about, in generally good spirits. Because when you’re buying new stuff, you’re reinventing who you are for a minute.
Soon my roommate Elijah joined us on our walk around the mall. He was a welcome sight, with his handsome features and messy dreadlocks, tanned skin from outdoor adventures and jeans ripped at the knee.
Before I knew what happened, Elijah and I were separated from AJ and the baby. Once he had joined us, I hardly even noticed they were with us. But AJ had driven so we decided to split up to find them. I went out the wrong exit and ended up in what looked like an office building. Fake wood doors with gold name plates pasted on them flashed passed me as I ran towards an exit. That familiar feeling of panic stretched through my lungs. It was like being back stage at the circus, dreary and depressing.
I finally got out to the great lawn again. Some football team in blue and red had won whatever championship they were playing for and fireworks were exploding because of it. I walked passed two girls talking on their cell phones. One girl was talking about a tall telephone line that just fallen down. It was a big deal because of how tall it was. She suspected a lot of damage had been done because of it. The people on the football field hadn’t seemed to notice.
Then I heard AJ, like she was on the phone and I was a neighbor who’s line had gotten crossed with hers and could listen in. She was saying that Elijah and the baby were dead, that the telephone line had gotten Elijah and she had to drive her dead family home. Horrified I started to walk faster. AJ’s voice had dissipated and all I could think to do was run to the back of the mall. I saw her purple mini van driving on the grass towards me. I slowed and didn’t know what else to do but cry. My bottom lip and chin crumpled up in that involuntary way and I saw her face contort too. She shook her head. I walked up to the van and opened the front door. I saw a car seat and next to it was Elijah. He looked like he was asleep and still just as beautiful as he was in life. No scaring, no blood. His skin was a milky version of what it once was, like when you go to a viewing and the person in the casket looks like a wax figure. I started to cry harder and as AJ started to tell me what happened all I could say was “no” over and over and over again. Like it would change something about the dead body sitting rigid yet peaceful in the back seat. I can’t remember what else she said, my ears started humming and before she could tell me about the baby, the one I barely felt I knew but couldn’t bare to hear was dead, I started shouting “WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP!”
I was in my bed, pressed up against the wall with sheets twisted around my head while tears, hot and mournful, still spilled from eyes. I sat up and looked out my window, it was still dark but already morning. I wanted to run downstairs to see him, hug him, or just touch his dark arm. But how do you tell someone you just saw them die? I laid in bed thinking that more sleep was an impossibility and contemplating this newfound intense affection I had for the boy that lived down stairs, the kind you feel when someone you thought you lost forever comes back. A prodigal affection. How thankful I was that his organs were still warm and vital and that his hands were still cracked and dirty with life.
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