Air Duct Dreams
Another lonely day is upon me. That thought stung me for many, many years when I first found myself here. Its rigidity was cold and sharp. But, perhaps, it focused my mind. Made it quicker and more keen.
Prior to me being lodged up here . . . it is difficult to say what those years were like. Tumultuous. Hazy. Uncoordinated. The boundaries of my memory have been made loose over the years. Much like my current situation, I can only see down one corridor at a time, one narrow line to follow. The grander picture of my past experience, as they say, has been replaced by one linear focus. But I suppose this should have been expected. The present shapes the past. Being up here in the air duct of a local Walmart has given me enough time to think on things.
The ducts themselves are rather spacious, I can easily crawl on my hands and knees from one side of the building to the other without issue. There are sections tall enough for me to sort of crouch-walk for exercise, which I’ve made extensive use of. Now, my legs are larger and stronger than they’ve ever been before. The metal of the duct system is cool to the touch, which I found uncomfortable at first, but have since grown accustomed to, and even appreciative of. However, the greatest treat of my present circumstance are the vents from which I can peer downwards and see the masses of people wander around, from isle to isle, from one place to another. They form a sort of system, one that is difficult to describe. They way they move . . . it resembles that of an ant mound—it’s extremely stratified—but perhaps that implies some sort of collective consciousness, which is absent here. I will have to think on this more before settling on an appropriate analogy.
This voyeurism is something I would’ve stood strongly against when I was one of them, one of those people down there. It would’ve gone against my belief in a right to privacy. But I think it is abundantly clear, now more than ever, that such a right doesn’t exist. Maybe it did at one point, but no longer. The age in which we live is perhaps defined by surveillance; so much so, that our people, our common understanding of the world has been warped as a result. What I mean is that the conditioning of the 21st century man to accept his observance is so complete, so baked into the core of our everyday interactions, that it has been rendered mundane. Normal.
I recognize this is nothing new. Far more eloquent people have raised this point a thousand times or more. However, I believe I’m in the best possible position to observe this fact dans la nature. Being here allows me to watch people and study their habits. I make inferences based on what I see. It’s fascinating.
For instance, between the slats in this vent, I can see a male Walmart employee inching closer and closer towards peering through cracks in the door of the women’s dressing room. Interesting.
We wait a moment and notice an obese, balding man shuffling towards the girl’s toy section. He’s sweating hard, looking over his shoulder. Interesting.
I call these small-scale observances ‘micro-events’, of which, I see hundreds on a daily basis, maybe even more. Micro-events are intimate and personal, but give us clues as to the complicated nature of life and the various forces which organize people into stratums. Over the years here, I’ve made a number of insights which are not wholly infallible, but provide some sort of basic truth within them:
No one looks at the ceiling in department stores.
A person’s gait—the way they walk—is easily the best indicator as to their place within our society.
Tattoos are class signifiers. They signal moving downwards in class. It wasn’t like this in the past, but it is now.
People are very aware of their place within the social hierarchy, and they demonstrate this physically.
The book section in most department stores mostly exists to sell cheap romance novels to old women.
Junkies and tweakers shop for clothes that are far too large in order to hide their bodies.
Screaming children typically belong to families with weak fathers.
Women will sniff an item—it could be virtually anything—before deciding to purchase it.
Walmart is an excellent containment zone for people who couldn’t possibly be employed anywhere else.
There are more, undoubtedly, but most seem too obvious to be worth listing here. I’ll have to do more thinking on this.
In terms of my own welfare, there are some challenges. Most notably, Walmart, by virtue of being open twenty-four hours per day, makes it extremely difficult to determine the time up here. My internal clock has long since been out of sync, and my sleeping schedule is mostly dictated by my body giving out on me. This is frustrating, especially when I have my sights trained on an interesting person. I’ll try to fight off the gloomy lure of sleep, but my chest will grow heavy, my breathing will slow, and my eyes will close, leaving me to wonder what sort of inference I could’ve gained if I’d just stayed awake another minute.
And here, now, I can feel that sensation again. To embrace the cool metal. To rest.
I will strive to have more insight when we meet again.
