‘Every child that has ever visited a department store will have experienced the absolute serenity at the center of a round clothing rack. These once-prevalent oases have diminished in recent years as the online marketplace drains life from the brick-and-mortar shopping experience. The obvious side-effect has been the decline of children’s mental health. The less obvious side-effect is the erratic shifting of ‘The Merry Barycenter,’ the clothing rack at the epicenter of serenity.
‘The Merry Barycenter’ is a natural phenomenon that manifested in the northeast corner of ‘Larry’s Formal’ for more than a decade. This was back when the department store scene was fairly stable and, though ‘The Merry Barycenter’ wobbled in place with the creation and destruction of orbiting clothing racks all over the country, its location was predictable within a few feet at any given time. ‘Larry’s Formal’ went so far as to advertise the phenomenon, both because it was something of a thrill to experience and because it was something of a liability if left to chance.
Coming into contact with ‘The Merry Barycenter’ is marked by the sort of serenity that derails a person- the sort of serenity granted by prescription medication that shouldn’t be taken while driving. Imagine that the experience of seeking respite in the center of a normal clothing rack is equivalent to putting on a sock that’s still warm from the dryer. Experiencing ‘The Merry Barycenter’ is like being completely enveloped by said sock- drawing the warm fabric over oneself entirely so that the rest of the world is distant and muted. It is a retreat into comfortable isolation that lasts as long as one is content to remain within its vague circumference. Historically, this has been proven to be a very long time indeed and ‘Larry’s Formal’ had to institute very clear, very strict guidelines regarding use of the space.
Those days are gone. The tenuous state of shopping centers means the orbital center of clothing racks moves and fluctuates. It sweeps across freeways. It encompasses city blocks. It sometimes shrinks to the size of a dustmote and disrupts the short-term memory of whoever is unfortunate enough to walk through it. For a long time, it seemed like ‘The Merry Barycenter’ could only be experienced by happenstance. It was effectively lost.
Recently, however, the internet and the broad concept of crowd-sourcing data has reignited hope in a community of people that chase the oblivion they experienced in youth. Small GPS devices have been installed on clothing racks all over the country and their coordinates are fed into an algorithm that attempts something very much like the many-body problem. The result is that ‘The Merry Barycenter’ can once again be traced, though a little luck is still required to find the exact location of the sweet spot: the area identified usually spans a square mile.
The orbital coat rack system is predicted to collapse within the century, taking ‘The Merry Barycenter’ with it. Gray Road physicists who care to issue statements about this eventuality are roundly pessimistic. Some insist we will experience a dangerous explosion of joy from wherever ‘The Merry Barycenter’ is when it dissolves. Others suggest it will be a quiet affair, the silent loss of a source for peace.’
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside
