See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Beige and red and grey surround me. This place smells and sounds faintly of plastic. Not a cacophony of plastic crinkle sounds but a constant hum. Not sunlight but institutional light like in a middle school—it’s everywhere and we bathe in the long dull florescent beams like we’re inside an awful tanning booth. The kids on the packaging for toys look like they’re on ecstasy but they’re probably not and I wonder if they were happy, how they felt as they got their picture taken—was it their idea?

I don’t even know if my picture’s being taken now. I see probably one or two hundred cameras on the ceiling but I don’t know if they’re on and I don’t know if they’re pointed at me. They’re too high to see. How would people feel differently if the cameras were more at eye level jutting out from the shelves? Would it scare people off? At eye level Target looks organized. On the floor it’s a mess. There’s scuff marks and trash—little piles of clothes. I don’t think people notice as they rarely look down.

I see no shadows here as so much light comes from all different directions. Four men and one woman just seem to be hanging. They look like they’re seventeen, eighteen or nineteen. “Hey remember when you said her head looked small?” “Yeah but I think I was wrong about that. Her eyes are really big tho.” She responds by saying “come on guys.” Then I see what looks like a middle aged couple. “Well would that fit into our car?” The woman asks the man. He replies with “yeah” but sounds too defensive, not confident enough. They decide not to get it.

The Captain America figurine is made in China. I see one woman with a child. “Hey can I get this sword?” “No you know your Dad won’t like that. How come you don’t want any dinosaur stuff? Come here and look at this dinosaur’s head.” Then there’s what looks like another middle aged couple, this time with a kid. One woman says to the other: “I think you want that batman more than he does. You give it to him every time we’re here.” Why do parents want their kids to play with certain toys and not other toys?

I see a display for a book called The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Paterson and I get slightly depressed that Bill Clinton has another book out on a major press and I don’t even tho I’m a much better writer than him. I hear extremely loud hums in the food section. Loads of refrigerator sounds all going off together like a crowd. It’s hard to notice how loud it is because it is so bland. “We’re out of bread.” “Yeah but we still have left-over pasta; do we really need more carbs?” A woman plays with her kids in the aisle with balls meant to be dog toys. I love it. She’s talking with her kids in Spanish. A ball rolls to me and I kick it back. Then she turns to me and says “o sorry” in English. I feel bad that she feels like she needs to apologize.

Today is the day before the 4th of July. They have little cheap American flags here. I want to steal one so I can burn it but there’s loads of cops right out front and I don’t want to get kidnaped so I don’t.

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Zack Haber is a poet and a journalist who lives in West Oakland. They’re the author of the chapbook if you want to be one them playing in the streets (Quiet Lightning/Tiny Splendor. 2014). They write regularly for The Oakland Post about homelessness and housing. Their work has also appeared in DataBleed Zine, Sierra Nevada Review, Entropy, Teen Vogue and other places. Their website is noopposite.com.