Inspired by a trip to Bahrain City Center mall.

Life is civilised, safe and easy in a city. There are streets, lined with shops and these mute, slow animals we call pedestrians. Well, now I come to think of it, maybe the city isn't such a safe place for some. Pedestrians have two main predators. If they leave their grazing area, the footpath, they will be killed or robbed. They will be killed if they walk into the stream of fast moving metal boxes that flows between the rows of shops in all cities. Or, they will be robbed if they, in seeking refuge from the boxes, enter a shop.

Shops exist to get money from pedestrians. All pedestrians have money. When you set up a shop it's the way to get the money from the pedestrians. You do this by convincing the pedestrians they need your stuff. All pedestrians are capable of resisting wanting something. Which is why you instead have to convince them they need the stuff in your shop.

To convince them, you give them television. Once they have television, they will see the stuff in your shop on it. Then they will think they need it. Although it's not quite that easy. No pedestrian is going to give you their money knowing what your stuff actually is, though. Like what the burger or strawberry milkshake will actually look like when you hand it over to them. Because if they did, they would see that they could actually make it themselves, better. So what they need to see on television needs to be something from heaven. The burger needs to be a shiny, glistening, vivid musical. Then when you give it to them, but they find it isn't, they will still accept it because they resolve the dissonance by remembering the nice musical and choosing to reduce the importance of not being lied to. This is how so many pedestrians are robbed by shops.

Another thing. Pedestrians come in two sexes. If it is a male sex pedestrian, he will feel he needs the thing in your shop if it will lead to him engaging in reproductive acts with what he terms a 'hot babe'. This is any healthy young female pedestrian with broad hips, thick lips and high cheekbones who looks like she could easily feed a baby. If the pedestrian is female sex, she will feel she needs the thing in the shop if it will lead to a generous, strong, rich, high status male pedestrian that demonstrates ability to quickly recover from adversity (whom she will call a 'man') investing in her.

So, cities are generally civilised, safe and easy to live in. Except for pedestrians, who need to stick to their footpaths. If not, they will be run over or stolen from in these large malls of death.