RADIOSHACK, AN EXPLORATION OF MANKIND’S GREATEST OUTPOST – Alec Ivan

March 27, 2026

Water trickling down from the burst pipes reflect the tidal pools swimming outside the shopping mall in torrential waves hung up slow against the walls seeped through the glass revolving doors and all their feet are wild soaked and all of them take shelter in the bathrooms further inside that are soon to be also, as the rest of it all, swept away. They sold prom clothes and dupe perfume at kiosks, dozens of them, set in between a GameStop, a Torrid, an H&M, a bustling PacSun, a Sears now floating away, it seems, in the storm, the mall is tears-down and inherent innocence is whipped away with the frayed remnants of a P.F. Chang’s crumbling with the pressure of the flooding, its oriental designs wisps in the air, a breath of God has knocked it all down, things are swept past as everyone cowers in various locations further inward, hoping to escape something which is not only inevitable, but is holy. At the third floor, up the dying escalators, up into the sky so far it may as well have already been hovering toward the clouds, the RadioShack, tucked in a small corner next to a skylight birthing nothing but the rain pattering against it, they’re huddled inside as if it’s the last beacon shining glow high into a coming dark, dark night. They refuse to leave as someone mentioned those who did seek shelter elsewhere have not yet returned to relay the information that maybe there’s somewhere else here to save them, that maybe there’s a hope after all, and collectively they agree in silence that the RadioShack is here for them, brought into the world as if a savior from up above, and what they don’t know is that the saviors, too, up there, are drowning. The flood carries away the hangers bearing trendy ripped jeans from the Hollister on the first floor and soon the Hollister is underwater and strangely some of them know this, have seen this, and many of them seem not to care at all. From outside the RadioShack you could look over the balcony and watch the clothes floating away out the doors along with other detrital remnants, papers having wafted over from some office somewhere, mud spreading like a virus over the collaboration of the lakes and rain bent on fizzing out the mall one vendor at a time until what is left is just the memory of such a thing, as if that memory, in ten years, would exist at all. There are people who are not left. Most of them have been carried outside into a world now totally unfamiliar to them. Families and lovers now drowned or drowning in a land without a single sun to be found and later the stars themselves will huddle around the moon as it floats further away retreating from its big brother as if in total hope annihilated. Someone in the RadioShack asks what they’re going to do as the rumbling earth fells flip phones already soaked through by the tumbling interior of pipes burst through the ceiling, the water gently rising as below, a three-floor flood, a great natural achievement. They ask what they’re going to do, and they ask this multiple times, and their cheeks are burning red and they’re holding a pack of batteries and nobody answers them, the time for talk having been left in the fountain at the center of the first floor just moments ago. Extension cords hang depressingly from their spots on the walls and there’s one employee left thinking wow, thinking I’m going to die here, thinking I’m going to fucking die at work in this dumbass fucking shirt. There’s a quiet here that tinges the air a sort of crimson peace as the only noise is that of consumer objects being carried away in flowing stasis, bent between life and death, and you can practically hear the Xbox controllers suffocating as they’re carried away in a game inevitable yet not meant for anybody. Someone coughs and they all look at them and they grit their teeth and say I’m sorry like it’s impolite to vocalize anything at a moment like this, and then somebody else sneezes, and another person sneezes, and another person chuckles a bit and lights a cigarette, the smoke wafting away out the door with a breeze of dank roiling forth from the waterworks above them. There’s a plumber here who wanted to fix his fire alarm at home. There’s a mother buying a phone for her teenage daughter whom she realized a long time ago is now long gone with her father and effortlessly she’s been crying quietly under her lungs ever since this came to her like a bad dream she cannot wake from. There’s about twelve of them packed into the store, not very many, but still the RadioShack feels as if it’s about to burst with the pressure of so many bodies. The flood has reached the second floor now, about halfway up, and through the misty glass they watch the waters rising swallow the carousel, taking away the lions and tigers and bringing the remnants of the food court downstairs up toward them, there’s a burrito sitting there that doesn’t seem to want to leave and a few takeout containers from the Chinese place just wandering accepting their fate, maybe the water will bring them to fresh air, and it will, and someone coughs again and nobody notices. They think of their pets standing on the roofs of their houses yowling into the rain. Let’s not think about that anymore. Let’s think about other things, like the plans the RadioShack sold for AT&T and the car chargers and the audio splitters and the little robot dogs that wouldn’t stop barking until somebody took out the batteries and let them loose on the now-engorged carpet. Someone starts whipping their shirt against their chest. It’s humid in here, oppressive even but at least it’s something to distract them from the water rising now reaching the third floor, the muddy float melding with the liquid dripped from the ceiling, and some of them begin to scramble onto the counter and others have accepted this long ago. Like spreading cancer cells. Like an argument you can’t shake. Like a friend you’ve lost over and over until you forget their name. The fluorescent lighting goes out and leaves them in a total dark while the parts drawers slide open and spill electronics over into the water it’s knee-level now and people start closing their eyes. Some of them dream of a better place, of a valley they visited as a child, someone thinks about what would happen if they pulled off their shirt right now it’s humid in here and someone else seems to be wheezing to bat off yet another cough it’s chest-level now. People begin to float toward the ceiling. Someone tries to swim out the door but gets stuck in the frame and goes under with the waves and is not seen again. I think it’s time, one of them thinks, for a prayer, and they begin to speak the word of God out loud, but nobody hears them through the rushing waters, and a sense of acceptance burns through all of them as they go belly-up toward the ceiling. The RadioShack sign blinks once, twice, and goes out and is underwater and now they’re all underwater and now the entire mall is underwater and the only panic wrought here, right now, is the air being sucked from their lungs as their bodies take over and try to whisk them away. One of them thinks about the fact that he never bought the robot who talks for his son. One of them wonders how expensive this will all be to repair when everything is said and done. The cars in the parking lot move toward Heaven, and the storm takes away the town’s pride and joy as the shopping mall becomes just another wonder of the world having passed by. Understand that this is what happens sometimes. Sometimes there are things you cannot control. These people have accepted this, had done so when they entered the store for the last time. They’re mostly gone now. All except one. She can hold her breath for a long time. She practiced it all the time with her brothers when they were young. She thinks to herself, I get to see them again. She thinks to herself, I can’t wait to play this game with them. And in the finality of what is to come to be a lost portion of the universe the waves take away everything that you once thought would never be taken away from you at all. She thinks, I can hold my breath the longest. She thinks, if only I had learned how to swim.