22 CREATIVE NONFICTION Your footsteps reverberate as you weave your way through this maze of summer-tees. A heap of eclectic items weighs on your forearm: that random pink pair of capris, a fl oral, tapered top that you know already you’re not going to like, and— You pause. Your chin tilts up over the eyelevel signpost reading, “50% off, store closing.” You step around it, assuming this store would be shutting its doors sooner or later. It’s JCPenney, after all. Their net sales fell over 3.4% last year. They fi led for bankruptcy back in 2020. The fact that the doors of this very establishment are still open is incredible. On Liminality Haley C. Kollstedt You enter the empty space between the clothing racks and the yawning gateway into the mall. The mall. Your arm goes limp. A slug of denim slips off your elbow and slouches onto the fl oor. You don’t pick it up right away. Your breathing slows as a whiff of stale retail breaches your thoughts with surprising potency. Tiles pave a swollen corridor, extending past your line of sight and forming a symmetrical river between steelbarred storefronts—closed for the day. To your right, a pair of frozen escalators crawl up to the fl oor above. An off-green glow penetrates
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