. . . I’m standing outside the ten years dormant commercial property that used to contain a Movie Gallery.
Movie Gallery was my jam, ‘cause they used to stock uncut versions of films that Blockbuster would insist upon censoring.
All that’s in the past.
Movie Gallery and Blockbuster.
Two inseparable rivals, joined at the soul like Sephiroth and Cloud, both consumed by the heat of their vendetta, and, in turn, obliterated by impersonal, Lifestream-esque market forces and shifts in consumer preferences and habits.
Yet the ruin abides.
Just like the ending of OG Final Fantasy VII.
Rumor abides, as well: the long dormant site has allegedly played host to Satanic rituals and GOP-hosted sex orgies. Since the Republicans have taken over Florida, the conspiracy people can’t really credibly scapegoat Democrats anymore, though you wouldn’t guess that from the usual suspects on Fox News and hard-right AM radio bloviation programs.
Someone told me that a couple of people have died of drug overdoses where shelves of cinematic history for the renting once stood. The usual concomitant prattle about restless ghosts haunting up the joint, natch.
It’s all bullshit. Tragic deaths. Satanic orgies. Political conspiracies. These phantom atrocities, however perversely, suggest an order-however cruel-which is soothing to those who insist upon such schemes. You would think that these free-thinking conspiracists would ruminate upon more enjoyable themes, but that’s just not how it works, I guess.
Me, I’m standing at the locked front door, doing a bit of a cargo cult routine. Years ago I bought some VHS tapes of various movies including Horror Express, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Baron Blood, Meet the Feebles, and Mondo Cane from a Movie Gallery that was trying to make room for new products, and they came in those distinctive rental cases with the pinkish-reddish insert cards within the plastic sleeves. I figure if I drop ‘em in the return chute that would unlock a door, open a path to a fully functional Movie Gallery concealed behind a hologram of ruin.
But it doesn’t even look like there’s a return chute anymore. I guess the owner just removed it as one whole piece however long ago. Trying to put a new look on the property it would seem. What would you open here, anyways? A payday loan joint? A vape shape? Tattoo parlor? A rage room? I’m kinda surprised no one’s leasing it. Kinda lends credence to my wacky notion of this being a veil of illusion waiting to be pierced by the main force of a cosmic perception such as mine.
Nothing doing.
No magic in this world.
Oh, Florida.
I guess we’ll always have, uh, well, not Paris, that’s for damn sure.
Delusion.
Yeah, that’s it.
We’ll always have our delusions.
Which is fine.
