My Hidden Kingdom Behind A Wardrobe
by Théa Jacquand
It’s a random Monday, mid-July. One minute, I’m squinting; the next, I’m trying to find enough sunlight to see the ground. Only fifty meters away, skyscrapers tower over my 8.5 million neighbors, but here it’s the trees and the thousands of star-shaped leaves that create the shade. This is one of the few places in this city where the ground is a dirt path; it’s not a concrete jungle, but almost like a real one. Tiny little people must be running around in the trees. They say this place has some of the most hidden diversity and countless little beings living amongst me. I can’t see a single one of them, but I know they are there. I guess this is what the philosophers were talking about with their state of nature stuff.
Every now and then, I can discern the distant screams of children scared of going too high up on a swing, or the ruthless honking of an angry taxi during the afternoon rush hour. In here, however, it’s the scratch between my muddy sneakers and the messy damp gravel, or the occasional tics of a woodpecker. It’s a peaceful cacophony. The obscure city noise is still there to remind me that I didn’t fall off the face of the earth.
There is also the peaceful trickle of the nearby stream; this park is too small for anything more. But in my mind, this is the Amazon of this solitary place: it’s where the rain lands, or where the water evaporates from when our city is in need of a cool down. This place is the beating heart of whatever remaining nature we have left.
When the sunlight peers through the holes between each pointy branch above me, I feel the five pm humidity on my back; it’s too hot to wear anything but a tank top and shorts, and the violent summer heat in this city is a tropical oppression in this corner of the park. But it’s not that bad – it’s perfect for an Austenian solitary ramble, to catch a break and perhaps a breath of fresh(ish) air. It’s not sticky and there are no gnats. It’s just hot, hot enough to sweat out only the toxins, not the water that sustains me. In here, it's as if I’ve only lived off of water and fruit my whole life. No Haribo candies or plastic soda bottles will ever be known to this place.
The sun will set in four more hours, so I have plenty of time before I need to get home. They say the park is unsafe at night, but it seems like no one really comes to this part of the park anyway. It’s almost devoid of humanity - I haven’t seen a human face in an hour, which is like forever in this city.
Nearby, somewhere behind the seemingly endless jungle gym of bushes, is the famous tourist pond. It’s where people watch the paper boats race, where time and competition matters. I know it’s close by. Occasionally, a rickety and jagged direction sign peeps out from behind a tree or an abandoned street light that serves as a ladder for deep green moss. Old, crusty paint lets me know that if I go left, I’ll end up on the 68th street entrance, but if I go right, I will find the bridge that crosses the pond, towards the West side. I’ll stop and stare at this sign for a few minutes. I am not wearing my contacts – very state of nature of me – so I really need to squint and focus my vision to see it. I can’t get any closer, there are too many pointy plants. I’m a little lost, but standing here, I kind of hope Gandalf is going to magically tell me where to go.