Everything Looks Like A Mall Now (A Short Story)
(This is a short story I posted on my Myspace blog on October 5, 2008, inspired by both an RFID shopping cart wheel lock in a Walgreens parking lot near my apartment, and the sort of “high-density residential centers” starting to pop up in Austin around then which have now taken over. I imagined a life contained strictly within them, defined by gigged remote work and algorithm-defined consumption. In the decade plus since then that apartment has long-been torn down and that Walgreens itself on East Riverside in Austin is now surrounded by a high density residential center combining apartments with shopfronts, and both “gig economy” and remote work are an unquestioned normal part of life now.)
BUZZ
The lamp above your pillow blinks on and your eyes flutter a bit before opening.
With an extra flourish that surprises yourself, you roll out of bed and plop into your seat at the desk nearby. Quickly, so as not to forget and lose any of it, you crank up your laptop and, in the appropriate form, report as much of your dream as you can remember (actually quite a bit this time, if you have to say so yourself).
For a few more hours, you contribute musings, sketches, and other mental detritus that came to you during the evening before; insuring to fill out the appropriate forms as you do so…