My Suit in a Bag

The mall. It seems quant that it would end here. Originality points: zero. I suppose it's the by-product of watching too many 70s horror movies and a naivity in thinking a new shirt would be a duct-tape solution to the sickness anyone I can meet will soon feel.

"What are they doing? Why do they come here?"
"Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives."

I first noticed the change this weekend after buying a pack of smokes from the BP in Dinkytown. I walked out of the building when my eyes connected to a girl sitting in a car waiting for her friend to fill up. Blue. Disconsolate. Despairing. Despondent. Ravenous.

She watched me get in my car, unblinking. I pulled onto University and up to the red 11th Ave. stoplight. The car she was in stopped next to me and I could feel her stare from the passenger seat. "She's just looking for the same thing as everyone else," I reassured myself.

"They're after us. They know we're still in here."
"They're after the place. They don't know why, they just remember. Remember that they want to be in here."

I turned off onto East River Road and drove along the banks haunted by her eyes.

But she wasn’t the only one. Walking to class on Monday, I saw it again in the face of a girl waiting to get on the bus.

She was infected too. It strangled her thoughts, twisted her face. Her hair, quickly tied up. Her focus, blankly into the concrete sidewalk.

What could cause such pain?

I had forgotten these questions and the incident by the time I left for a concert that evening. When I returned I noticed a deep scratch across my chest, just above my heart (visible in a recent facebook photo).

Fuck, I’ve been bitten. No, I can’t be. My shirt isn’t ripped. It’s probably nothing. I’m over-reacting.

The next morning everything was different. A new color filled my reality. I couldn't shake the random moments of my mind screaming, drowning.

A call from a friend broke my penance, “Let’s go to the mall, there is a sale this weekend at Banana Republic.” Anything to fill the void.

In the car, it picks up again. I’m walking inside.

It’s getting worse now. I sit down on a bench, writhing. Everyone oblivious.

I can feel it pulsing in my body, vibrating within every fiber of my being: shaking my soul to silence.

"The normal question, the first question is, are these cannibals? No, they are not. Cannibalism in the true sense of the word implies an interspecies activity. These creatures cannot be considered human. They prey on humans. They do not prey on each other, that's the difference. They attack and they feed only on warm flesh. Intelligence? Seemingly no reasoning ability, but basic skills remain from a remembered everyday life. There have been reports of these creatures using tools. But even these are the most basic, the use of tools as bludgeons and so forth. I might point out that even animals have been known to adopt the use of tools in this manner. These creatures are nothing but pure, motorized instinct."

I am poisoned, sadism--setting in. I must resist. I am stronger, I can't be broken. I am
















Hello.

I'm Brad, nice to meet you.

Are you free this weekend?

Dinner and a movie?

I'll see you at eight.