Amazing Sleepwalkers and a Welcome Home

I stood below the front door to my soul-house, just by the jetted fountains now in full play, and looked up at the entrance. The door stood open, naturally, so I mounted the steps and went on in.
 From underfoot blossomed a riot of new colour, and sun through the fanlight lit up the normally bare white entranceway. The escalators were running, up and down, and that pulse of Love which tells you that you belong here was palpable in the air.

I must have fallen asleep at that point, for I don't recall any more, but it was good to be back at the old place. In contrast, this morning I had to deal with a couple of cases of severe mall-maze, which has shaken my tuning off a bit.

Warren and I were out, to fill up our stove's gas bottle (surprise! It can't be done on a Sunday) and to buy a new black ink cartridge for the ten-year-old printer we still insist on using at home - you know, the one for which Linux doesn't have a codex.

The store called Game is situated in the middle of the Northgate Mall,and it was here that we reckoned our chances were best for getting the cartridge at just-below a breathtakingly high price.
The better-quality cartridge on offer was the same price as a new printer, so we opted for the one of lesser ink quality. But we found we couldn't remove it from its hanging rack, as it was locked in there. Looking around, we coaxed a sleepy-eyed sales assistant to give us the goods so that we could pay for it and get out of the damned mall. I must mention here that Warren was dressed in the same clothes he'd had on yesterday, was unshaven and tired after a week fielding a new position at his work. Myself, I had wet hair which was tangling badly, and while it didn't bother me too much in the dry Highveld air, I did notice a propensity in myself for stalking like a large, black predatory feline when forced into the Mall Position.

The assistant wrote out a slip for the cost of the cartridge and told us to pay at the teller in the department - the only teller I might add. She was already serving a man perhaps ten years my senior, whose seemingly endless stream of electronic purchases was being paid for, an item at a time, with different credit cards. His movements were mushily slow, and looking at his face, I caught a look of utter blank vacuousness there. The teller, apparently in sympathy, was going about her job in matching slow motion.

I laid the slip down on a stack of Special!! Offer!! Bargains!! and walked out of the shop.
Ten minutes later we had purchased the same item from Pick 'n Pay without the benefit of the mall-mazed humans.

Perhaps, one day, I will not have such a short-fused temper on me when dealing with my fellows in commercial situations. But I wouldn't want to bet much money on it.

Photo: A Zombie in a Shopping Mall, How Unusual!