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“Couldn’t sell it. Couldn’t demolish it. No one could afford to anything back in 2009 except for let it sit. All alone. Sometimes when I’m in sleep mode, I’ll think about what it must have been like for the very last store in the mall. Watching the neighboring stores blink out of existence. Watching the fountains get turned off. Watching the flowers die.”
“God. That’s depressing, Les.”
“I did not mean to depress you. Everything dies. It’s natural. For organic things anyway.” Calculester shrugs, and you swear you can see a wistful look on his pixeled face. You weren’t sure what you were expecting when Calculester said he wanted you to come over, but the enormous, abandoned mall at the edge of town wasn’t high on this list of possibilities. You didn’t expect to feel anything when you saw it, but suddenly you’re brought back to when you were 8 and your mom took you and your best friend for your birthday. You still remember the sticky tables and infinite possibilities as you looked up from the food court at the people streaming by on the floor above.
Now the parking lot is cracked, and weeds grow up out of the planters by the gold trimmed doors. Les glances up at the camera, and you hear a clack as he remotely disarms the security system. You suppose it makes sense that it’s locked, after all, it is his—house?
“Sorry. I could have taken this whole sensor down, but I’m afraid if I do, someone will come in and ruin it. Hurt my plants maybe. I’m not worth much in a fight.” He chuckles. He sounds so cute when he’s nervous.
Your steps echo in the cavernous lobby. This is it. The food court. You jog over to the Cinnabon and leap over the countertop. You put on your best customer service voice. “Good evening sir! Will it be the churro, or the sticky pecan roll today?” Les laughs at you and reaches into his pocket.
“No way. You didn’t.” He’s holding a tube of dough. Cinnamon roll dough.
“I did.” You can practically see his digital green blush. “You see. The machine still works.” Sure, enough the red light clicks on, and you can feel heat, hear it’s electric buzz as he puts the rolls on a sheet pan. “I recall you mentioning “cinnamon rolls” exactly three times since we started dating. It just felt right.”
You and Calculester sit in the food court under the dim security lights. You set a roll in front of him too. Even though he doesn’t eat, it makes him feel included.
“Tell me what it tastes like?”
Guiltily, you reply “Hmm…well it tastes damn good…”
“No. Error. Insufficient explanation.”
He’s teasing you.
“Okay…. Well, it’s soft, and sweet, but with just the littlest kick of spice.” You gently kick him under the table. “Right, you don’t know what sweet is. It tastes like… how being with you feels.” Now he’s blushing. You reach over and grab his hand.
“I.. I… I…” His system is overloaded. You’ve been dating two months, but he’s still not used to being complimented by you. He shakes his head as if to clear his brain and leads you down the corridor. You walk up a frozen escalator, then another, until you’re on the third floor. The ceiling above is triangular with windowed skylights letting in dusty shafts of sunlight. It seems like you must have walked to the very end of the mall before you see it. Radio Shack.
The interior is uncannily familiar, but something is off. It’s the light. Where is the light coming from? As you head further back you realize that nearly all the drywall has been painstakingly removed and the entire back wall has been replaced with a mismatched, stained glass patchwork of junkyard glass. Faded yellow and pink shadows fall onto plants of every kind lining the shelves, leaning toward the light.
“Les. How long did –that—take you??” You ask in awe, gaping at the strange greenhouse.
“About four years.” He says, a touch of pride in his voice. That’s his entire life. “I…I felt very lost after I came to consciousness. Especially after school. When all of you went to your homes, I had… no place to go.” He sighs, almost imperceptibly. “So, I walked. I kept walking. Until I found this place. It was so dark when I found it. Dusty. All these radios, and phones, and computers… just sitting here. Waiting for people who would never talk to them. It was too much. So, I started tearing down the wall, a little bit every day. If they can’t have a purpose anymore, I at least wanted to make them beautiful. Give them somewhere nice to live.”
It’s then you realize that that the plants and the electronics are nearly indistinguishable from each other. Philodendrons and ivy caress the screens and buttons. Aloe and cacti rest atop printers and television sets. You swear that you hear some of the stereo sets hum as you walk by.
“Did you know that in the Shinto way of thinking, people believe that after 100 years, objects gain a soul?” Calculester says, almost absentmindedly.
I shake my head, still silenced by the strange garden.
“I think everything has a soul. Even if it’s just a little bit. Everything deserves to be cherished. So much is cast aside and replaced at every opportunity. I often think about what would have happened if the school had just replaced the library computers before… you know.”
You can’t bear it. The thought of him never existing. The fact that he is an unlikely accident. A wonderful accident. You sidle up next to him on the cot he must have lifted from the old pottery barn. It looks out the makeshift window to the empty parking lot, and beyond that to the forest. For the first time, he puts his arm around you, his metallic touch warm in the sunlight.
“ I hope someday when all of you… organic beings are gone… that life can still find a way to be beautiful for me. I’m scared. Scared of then. When you won’t be beside me.”
For now, though, the time moves slow. You lay together in the unlikely, technological jungle, musing on eternity, and wondering why this couldn’t be it.