rayaso | Dying At The Mall

LJ Idol Topic 6
Let's Go To The Mall

DYING AT THE MALL

“Let’s go to the mall!” they had said. “It’ll be fun!” they had said. No one had mentioned anything about dying, so Clifford Stevens had boarded the van from the Sunny Days Rest Home and had gone to the Great Mall of Jonesboro, along with seven other “guests” who had been abandoned by their families.

The trip to the mall had been inspired by a recent newspaper article which had rated Sunny Days as one of the worst rest homes in the area. The corporate owners had responded with a little new paint, some new furniture, and a few plastic flowers in the reception area. The residents would have preferred visits from home, new games and better food, but they really hadn’t minded – they knew why they were there.

Cliff had signed up for the trip because who knew when it might be offered again – probably before the next government inspection. You could always tell when the inspectors were coming because Sunny Days added steak to the menu, even though only a few could chew it. It was the thought that counted.

Cliff had hated malls when he was younger and he hated them even more now, but he could never get away from his roommate and the malls smelled nicer, so he went along. It took a long time to load them into the van, with all their walkers, wheelchairs, and breathing tanks. The apparatus of death were many. Fortunately, at 91, Cliff only needed a cane.

Unloading took just as long, and once inside the mall, they had a rest and then they were separated into two groups, those who knew where they were, and those who didn’t. It didn’t take much to pass the rare mental status checks at Sunny Days – all you had to do when asked where you lived was answer “Sunny Days” or “home,” which made Cliff gag.

Cliff had lived in a nice house for over forty years with his wife, Cindy, and a succession of cats. They had been married sixty-one years, but they had never been able to have children. Cindy had had a stroke five years ago and had died, which broke Cliff’s heart. He had never thought much about the expression until it happened, and then he knew. He had also learned how much harder death could be on the living.

His health had gotten worse and worse over the years, until he knew he couldn’t live alone any more, so had he sold his house and he had moved to Sunny Days – “death’s doorstep,” he had called it. It was just a matter of waiting for Cindy, and one place was as good as another. Cliff had always been a pragmatic man.
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Once finally under way, Cliff’s group navigated slowly down the mall, with its bright lights, bad music, and many shops. Cliff hadn’t understood the mall shops for years – he knew he missed their target demographic by seventy years. There were still a few stores he knew – Macys, Sears, and the bookstore – but kids trying to sell him covers for cell phones were out of luck.

At Cliff’s age, no one approached him about anything anymore. Mostly people resented him because he couldn’t operate the change machine at the cinnamon bun store very well, but no one had had the courtesy to help him; the cinnamon bun sure tasted good in spite of that. He had become used to being invisible years ago.

As he shuffled down the mall, Cliff loved to see the little children – he sure missed not having any. He and Cindy used to go to the parks to see them, until it had made her too sad. Cliff would still go on his own sometimes, but he never told her. Here in the mall, it made him feel closer to her; it had been so long since he had seen children. He missed holding Cindy's hand.

It happened on the way back to the van. Cliff felt dizzy, real dizzy, not like before. Nothing hurt, he just spun and collapsed, and then he stopped breathing. Sure, someone called 911 and they took him to the hospital, but Cliff wasn’t coming back. A doctor said he had had a cardiac arrhythmia.

If you had asked Cliff about places to die, a mall would not have been on his list, but it was better than Sunny Days. It certainly smelled a lot nicer, and people were genuinely concerned, if only for a little bit. The best he could have hoped for at Sunny Days would have been “there goes another one – clean up the room and see who’s on the waiting list.” If he was going to hell, Cliff had hoped he got some credit for time served.

Religion had mattered to Cliff off and on, and he had hoped he wound up on the right side of the issue, but he had figured that was outside his control, and that God, or whoever, would probably forgive him if he didn’t get it exactly right. The only thing that mattered was that he be with Cindy.

Cliff needn’t have worried. At first, he didn’t know where he was; he knew only one thing for sure – Cindy was there, smiling at him, and he could hold her hand, and they were surrounded by children.

Whatever this was, it was good enough.