On a Sunday, truckloads of light-colored dirt moved through the wet parking lot, carried into the mall in thick blue tarps by four men at each corner, rotating carefully, like a pinwheel, their different colored t-shirts through the door. They each take turns entering the building, stepping into the dimness from the bright outside. The smooth shiny floors of the mall reflect soft valance lighting upward, more accurately -- captured bluish reflections that diffuse over the tiles, the radio in the corner. There is a group of 4-5 men in front of where a large department store was, long closed before the transformation began, sitting on chairs of various styles, sitting in front of the clear plastic shrouds of construction, bunched up here and there, blue plastic shrouds in some places, power tools on the floor near the entrance. The mall is closed right now. When it opens, the few stores that are left in the mall will remain, but the landscape around them will be different.

The light-colored dirt is heaved in thin and rhythmic movements from the tarps, rocked forwards and backward with the dirt momentarily suspended before it hits the shiny tiles, creating a thin layer in front of the shops, the sandy floor footprinted by the last worker before the doors of the mall open. Before the doors open, it is especially dark now in the middle of the night. The only nearby light is a corridor of jewelry stores whose illuminated glass cases make this quiet wing museum-like, silvery sparkles from small treasures affixed to velvety green pillows.

        The escalator stairs flatten silently in the night, onto the second level where the remaining clothing stores are. Warm light fills the glass enclosures, adjustable beams focusing onto body forms and mannequins. Behind the residential-looking locked doors, purses hang from waterfall displays in the dark….

//something else, something else,

The shapes of kiosks cloaked in after-hours nylon fabric accompany a walk on the second level, the moon repeating in each skylight, towards a clock with no numbers on its face, at the top of an elevator column that originates from a lower-level fountain.

The food court is a plaza of shadows, especially under the skylights that fill the expanse of the dining area with soft natural light. The sound of quick chopping, the radios deep inside the fluorescent-lit rectangles of restaurant doorways, radios to keep it going, radios at every waking hour.

A boy runs laughing with an orange in his hand. The palm trees are already unearthed from around the fountains, their roots in plastic like the construction shrouds in front of the department store. They are placed into heavy solitary pots at the entrance of each remaining business, meant to bring good fortune to everyone who passes, especially the merchants, open to any talisman or omen, even the Coptic shopkeepers who quietly reassign the symbols’ meanings.

/add more here
The horses remain on the mall carousel, whose speed has been adjusted. Big baskets with pleasing conical mounds of cinnamon, paprika, nutmeg, cardamom, rose buds, and other spices are placed onto the carousel floor, set into motion. Amidst the horse's painted expressions and brass poles, (poles that are reached for) moved between on the rotating platform by the shoppers who don’t use the carousel as a Lazy Susan as the older ones do. (too impractical, so have a worker on the carousel, the shoppers, all around the carousel, touch the basket of what they need and hold fingers up, where the spices are already bagged and handed off on the next rotation. we’ll see!)

        The horses remain on the mall carousel, whose speed has been adjusted. Big baskets with pleasing conical mounds of cinnamon, paprika, nutmeg, cardamom, rose buds, and other spices are placed onto the carousel floor and set into motion. The shoppers, all around the Lazy Susan, touch the baskets filled with the colors of their desired flavors and raise their fingers. Amidst horse's painted expressions and brass poles, a lithe merchant moves between baskets to fulfill orders, handing off neatly folded brown paper parcels on the carousel’s next pass.
colorkitty.com

A man in a tower on-site has something to do with this, a room at the top with no air conditioning and tea on a table, with a spiral stairwell that he contemplates serious matters in, with the men meeting him at a door at the bottom where something is exchanged, where he walks back up with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, walks with a quiet determination, where he pauses near the top of the stairs, near the entrance to his quarters where only a sheet separates the room, like the sheets in the panoramic (360°) window, sheets that glow in the sun, fill like sails and shimmer in the warm wind.