Napowrimo 4/13/26: mall of myself

Today's Napowrimo prompt asks us to consider a remembered, cherished landscape.

For a long time, the former mall of my youth, now pile of rubble, came to me in dreams.
I'd dream it into some revitalized glory. A mall, invincible. Revised industry, some

can't miss display of the American Spirit. Some item that saved it from controlled detonation
and wrecking balls. In its final act, one corner was blocked off by benches-imposing barricades

to deny passerby from stumbling into a space with a roof's failure and a skylight's humble
beginning as a package deal. I bought my first pair of baggy pants right where that chunk of 

ceiling gouged the floor. What would I be without memories? Playing every demo on
the Game Store's controller affixed with flu X from 1998? Buying overpriced CDs from a

store next to a storefront attempt at women's fitness. This right of passage. Hailing the god 
of Commerce, bespoke coins from a distant land trinkling in our pockets. This was supposed

to be forever. I blessed my first home with water from the food court. I told my angels and my devils
that it would be alright, and I was speaking in the tongue of my dead ancestors. Climbing a boat

to this version of America. At night, they see me, unswaddled from my youthful crib, spending currency on a mall gyro, unfettered in the transaction, my gold as good as anyone's and they know 

that the world will work itself out for them. In the arcade. In the clothing stores. In the haircut
place that once gave me odd sideburns. This is the price we pay, however, and eventually, we 

will return to dirt and ash and be turned into a warehouse that will feast from the mall's barren children, serving fast food and microwaved cuisine to the hungry, the willing, the ones who dream the only

dreams they understand, standing at the top of the boat, ready to join the world and spend
whatever money is left-my allowance-on whatever the storefront sells us today.