The outside mall was dusty, full of large families and battered cars all decaying in the harsh sun.
I was dressed in a light blue polo Ralph Lauren shirt, red shorts and aviators- which blocked out the Sun’s damned rays. I was accompanied by my family. All who loved Florida like me. A Latino family loitered outside of The thrift store we were going to enter, they talked amongst one another as we walked up to the store. All of us quietly wondered if anything worthwhile would be there. I was also thinking about a girl I knew and I very much liked (the feeling was mutual between us) and as well as I usually did took in the scenery; the decaying metropolis, the overpopulated Floridian landscape full of countless thrift stores whilst sirens blared and people crowd Disneyland and malls ignorant of everything else but their own overt faux perfection. The whole place was inspiring to me as a writer and I loved it, hell I loved the cheap thrift stores as well where I could buy cheap t-shirts, electronic items it was better than most outlet stores that were in the bigger, more expensive malls.
We entered through the automatic doors and were presented with countless racks and hundreds of articles of clothing.
“Have a good stay.”
The bulky security guard said. We all nodded in silence. The size of the store didn’t leave us in awe as we’d been before but it was always a surprise to see this many cheap things in one place and in good condition. There was a multitude of tills too. Most of them manned. With those on the tills folding clothes or banging the buttons on the till whilst an overtly impatient customer tapped their feet. Or packed their bags waiting for the receipt.
I took a deep breath and walked off to the men’s clothes section wondering if I’d have any luck with finding any decent clothes.
The sun scorched everything outside. Whilst I flicked through the racks of t-shirts.
Ben Brizell 