Start shopping trip

It doesn’t takes long until you meet Eric. He looks strange today. No elegant shirt or pants. Just a normal shirt and jeans. According to himself, these clothes make him look almost normal when you go to the mall. You don’t mind to be honest. As long as you get some clothes and other stuff your bodyguard can wear what he wants.

Quickly you and Eric head to one of your fathers’ cars. It is a different one than yesterday, but you assume this means nothing. You hop on the passenger seat next to Eric who is driving. Soon you leave the district with the mansions. To your surprise, the police officer that should keep an eye on you is not there. Maybe there was an emergency close by or he isn’t on duty that early. Or he is in civil and you simply oversaw him. But you doubt this thought.

It doesn’t take long and you arrive in the busy core of sunset hills. Downtown is full of life and hectic. Traffic and people everywhere. You see some really interesting places on the way. And the great mall takes your breath. There was a mall in your home town too, but it was much smaller. This one is as large as three blocks and around seven floors high. There even is a small garden around the building with benches to relax and a tiny playground for tiny children. It is beautiful.

Eric drives in an underground car park. Because it is early there is a lot of space but there are still many cars. If these are the customers for a weekday morning you wonder how full this mall get’s on weekend. Only a few people are around. Two or three guys turn around when you walk past them and take a look at your ass. But Eric scares them away with a single, angry look.

In the mall, there are several floors connected by stairs and lifts with either a hole or a place for relaxing in the middle. Each floor seems to have several shops. So, the owners of shops and branches can rent a place here and sell their stuff. You see shops for jewelry and clothes, sport shops, different restaurants and cafés, food markets, electronic shops and some for tools or kitchen equipment. However, something is missing when you look at this perfect world of consumption.

“Hey Eric,” you mumble, “not that I mind, but shouldn’t there be some beggars or a mad doomsday prophet around? In my hometown we had some.”

“The police regularly chase them away,” Eric mumbles back, “the owners of the mall don’t want them to distract or annoy their customers or scare away possible shop owners who want to rent a place in the mall.”

“Is this legal?” you ask unsure.

“If one of them enters the private ground of the mall it is,” Eric answers and shrugs his shoulders, “and the others … well a few police officers regularly hold out their hands, if you know what I mean.”

You nod and keep quiet. You are totally aware that corruption is everywhere. Still, using money and power to harass the poorest people imaginable feels strange.