Steve's Leaves

The Mall 2.2: Forward You've been in malls before. You once went to Sky Mall before visiting Roosevelt Field Mall. You've been in smaller malls in little towns such as this one, too. You've never been in this one, though. It is larger than the stores inside warrant. It looks like it underwent an ambitious renovation at some point during the early 00's but never really caught on. The ghosts of that ambition, according to the coworker that suggested this place to begin with, can be seen and felt both. As you walk onwards, you realize the truth in those words. You see yards of places that once were, shut down and left with only a "for lease" sign in the long run. Matt told you how there was once a Sears that drew in the mall's biggest revenue. There were more than four pretzel shops then; two served other foods. There were stores around every corner, plus an Arby's and a pizza joint.  It didn't matter in the end, though; none of...

Part 1 Where are you, really?             Hours ago, you were clocking out of work when you suddenly remembered that today was the anniversary of your engagement to your significant other. Briefly, you panicked and started asking your co-workers about nearby jewelry stores. All but one cited stores that were closed now; your co-worker Matt had a different suggestion.               "There's this mall 5 miles away from here that kinda sorta still has stores and shit there. I know they have a Kay's," Matt told you, "No one I know's gone there since that thing a while back, though."            He explains that, seven years ago, there was a spree shooter in the aforementioned mall. The dude entered through the back entrance before brandishing three semi-automatic pistols. The shooter killed everyone in that corner of the mall and would have gone further if the hallway to th...

       I wrote this story a year ago and wanted to incorporate pictures of the mall I was thinking of in question but was discouraged by the pictures I got, which were livelier than I anticipated. I'll include a few at the end. In the meantime, here's THE MALL            It's in a town you can't remember the name of. Not a crowded town, it's more of a nook in comparison to a city. You're unsure of what the name of it is; you know that it has a one-story mall strip that was once bigger than it is today, full of a vibrant energy you can almost see dying within the walls that failed it. Today, the mall...if you can call it that... consists of a driver's license center, an adjacent arcade with three or four games and a gumball machine, a small candle store and an independently owned Ross's next to an unfinished cigarette store. The mall still sees business from Monday 'til Saturday, 10 in the morning 'til 8 in the evening, alth...