I’ve been casually in this particular mall for three years, and I have already built a mental picture of where places are supposed to be.
I still get lost in it sometimes, but in the shops I often go to, I seem to know where to find them.
Except today.
Not today.
My boyfriend and I have been walking in circles for around an hour, looking for the department store, but we can’t seem to find it. Walking around felt like I was sure of it, “It had to be around here somewhere.” But then my mind cannot seem to put two and two together.
After a frustrating hour, a memory seemed to light up in my head. It dawned on me that the escalator I used to walk through in between floors was scraped entirely clean. It only became apparent to me when I looked closely at the ceiling, revealing different patches of paint, the new glowing above the old.
That’s when my neurons finally made a new connection. And the mental picture I had in my mind started to reshape again.
I felt like a lab rat, realizing what was happening for the first time.