‘Forgotten, at times, among the myriad extinctions of our age, is a near-global mourning of the loss of the ‘third space.’ For the uninitiated, a third space is a location outside of one’s home and workplace, normally meant for socializing- a place for meeting friends. Malls traditionally filled the role of third space in America and we’re finding that they were something of a keystone in the intricate social patterns of humans, particularly young humans who are not yet welcome in bars and are still too cool for their local library. The malls haven’t disappeared entirely, of course, but those that survive are largely unwell, riddled with empty stores and tumorous stall-based merchants. They, like a terminal grandparent, do not appeal to children. They repulse them.
Young people, these days, would rather stay home than visit a mall. They would rather stream videos to their phones, cradled between their legs in a comfortable chair while a flatscreen television screams boomer media into the void on the horizon. Kids these days would rather vape in their cars and argue about the best flavors of marijuana edibles.
Kids these days would rather skip third places entirely, and they have begun visiting the forbidden ‘Fourth Place,’ and this is a concern for us all.
‘The Fourth Place’ is considered an American destination because it can only be accessed in-country. For all other intents and purposes, ‘The Fourth Place’ is a location outside of space, a flat white plane with little variation in terrain or atmosphere. Bodies do not seem to exist in ‘The Fourth Place.’ It is a realm for consciousness alone and it is both vast and crowded. Thoughts arrive uninhibited in ‘The Fourth Space.’ They are shared via entanglement, an act that youths tend to perform with no particular consideration of the dangers involved. Studies have shown that participants in entanglement sometimes exit with foreign thoughts- with ideas that could not have been their own. Sometimes these thoughts are good. Other times they are cruel.
This is the appeal of entanglement: the integration of strange thoughts.
‘The Fourth Space’ has several branches in most states, a full list can be found in the appendix. Responsible travelers should complete a mental audit before visiting, via their preferred meditation technique, as youthful consciousnesses have been known to swarm unsuspecting newcomers with uncomfortable mental narratives and earworm jingles that no earthly song can exorcise.’
Entrances to ‘The Fourth Space’ occur naturally. That’s what the current science says, anyway. Most have now been monetized, of course, they having been discovered on private lots in an age before regulatory laws could catch up to such things. I find a cheap entrance so far up north that I may as well be in Canada. It’s cold, for autumn, and the entrance is in a tin shed. A sign inside asks visitors to leave ten dollars in a jar. Honor system. When I arrive the jar holds one dead fly. I empty it on the floor and put my money in. I enter ‘The Fourth Space’ via a hole in the wall. My body is not left behind, but it isn’t with me either. Everything goes white.
Then the voices.
In the end, ‘The Fourth Space’ isn’t quite as bad as it’s made out to be. It’s annoying, really, and annoying in a way that signals to me that I’m getting old. The Wayside is beginning to adjust itself, shifting to incorporate the uncomfortable run-off of new generations and, in doing so, shedding the skin I’ve grown familiar with. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll have a place, here.
And I’m not sure where else there is to go.
-traveler
