294 night in the woods - goodbye to shopping malls

Dear Readers,

Bea marched me back into URev0luti0n, telling me it wasn't sticking it to the man, as the man wasn't going to lose anything, but the store assistant was going to get in a lot of trouble.

I cynically replied that she was just a cog in a much bigger machine and Bea just said sure, whatever and to just return what we took.

I said hi and the assistant said I was back. Bea wasn't coming in yet. I admitted we stole some stuff and here was that stuff back as we didn't want her to get in trouble with her boss. It wasn't her fault the world was like it was. The store assistant was surprised.

I reiterated that she was just a cog in a much bigger machine and that to blame her would be like blaming a thing inside a whole thing. After a pause she asked if we were returning stolen merchandise. I said one day folks like her were going to overthrow the whole thing. She said what whole thing and I just said the. whole. thing.

Bea said we were leaving. I told the store assistant to stay strong and called her a beautiful dreamer, as she had nothing to lose but her chains. I loved my idealistic babbling here :)

After this exchange we left the store and made our way out of the mall. Sentimental music played while we were walking towards the exit. I said this place used to be something. Bea said it was still *something* and I said nah, that it was just a big mostly-empty thing in a big mostly-empty parking lot. Bea said you work with what you have. I said let's never come here again and Bea said I didn't have to convince her. She said she only came here because I wanted to. I said Fort Lucenne used to be something but now Fort Lucenne was over. Bea said let's go and let it die in peace and I just said to let. it. die.

I said I wanted to drive on the way home and Bea said nope.

That was our goodbye to the mall, and probably our goodbye to the general idea of malls in this internet age.

When I got home I made a doodle in my journal. I drew Bea and myself, dressed in black with black eye masks. Bea was holding a diamond and I was holding a bag of loot. We looked pretty fearsome! I then wrote "BANDIT QUEENS OF THE FT. LUCENNE MALL" Underneath I drew the fish head statue spurting out water and wrote alongside it: "ALL HAIL"