Continued, from June 25 post….
Our next exploration at the decommissioned base was the abandoned commissary. I pictured some little building akin to a small-town store-front grocery, but this building was enormous. Like the size of a modern-day Safeway.
A co-worker brought his portable generator for this particular exploration, and set up a few lights just inside the door of the commissary. The lights created a pool of light on a pile of equipment that we were to inspect, but cavernous darkness lay beyond. We did our inventory (yes, 14 salvageable 5-drawer units to store historic blueprints and maps), and then my friend J. (a fellow historian/explorer) and I grabbed flashlights and scattered into the darkness, leaving our co-worker to guard the generator.
There is nothing like the crumbling remains of a formerly vital place. The aura of things that were once deemed necessary but are now purposeless feels so wasteful, empty and haunted. (I think that is why I have always been fascinated by post-apocalyptic and dystopian future stories and movies: I like to imagine what would remain useful or meaningful–material or immaterial–after any societal collapse.)
At the dark end of the building, after an immense span of open floor space, are a row of intact check-out registers and the store offices. It was evident that the office spaces had been used as living space or a drug squat. Hypodermic needles littered the floor, along with all kinds of debris including small broken appliances, food containers, and children’s toys, which look a little disturbing in that context.
After we explored the remainder of the building, I stood and looked at the piles of cast-off office equipment and furniture. The familiar panic started to rise: “How could I use these things so that they don’t go to waste?” But I had to suppress it, and let it go. There isn’t enough time or space to claim everything that could be gleaned and re-used.
