Before I get to what little I recall of the story, I should say that I did not read this in an SF magazine.

I can describe only one scene.

A married couple are on a parallel world, similar to but not their own. She is some type of health care professional, I don't know what he does.

They enter a suburban mall and are almost immediately horrified. Almost everyone is immensely fat, with most people over fifty being in motorized wheelchairs (which appears to date the story). They're in a food court, and the food smells and tastes rather industrial. This is a world where they still put Alum in bread to whiten it, for example (I was reminded of those terrible artificial sweeteners used in the 50s with their phenol(?) taste).

But the locals apparently like it. Can't get enough of it, in fact.

She runs from the mall. He lingers until he notices the music, which is so bland it makes Muzak sound like Xenakis (my analogy). Maybe he is a music teacher.

And I have no idea what happens next. It sounds a bit like Pohl, but is not.

One question that lingers, are these people from our world in a parallel world, or people from a parallel world in ours?

William Hyde