The Newtown Pentacle

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– photo by Mitch Waxman

Journeying to the Shining City is not an activity which one such as myself enjoys. Traveling locomotively through these mouldering catacombs of concrete and steel while using the so called Subway is inherently unsettling, but being delivered to one of the deeply situated stations such as the 59th and Lex stop is utterly disturbing.

That horrors which lurk and twist and squirm through and within the subterranean deeps of the schist of Manhattan are merely rumors, of course, the stuff of diseased fancy and Hollywood epic. It does not pay dividends to ponder ones fate, should the lights go out when one is… down there… with… them.

from wikipedia

Rats primarily find food and shelter at human places and therefore interact with humans in various ways. More often than not, rats are found in corner stores in New York. In particular, the city’s rats adapt to practices and habits among New Yorkers for disposing of food waste. Curbside overnight disposal from residences, stores, subway and restaurants, as well as littering, contribute to the sustenance of the city’s rats.

Rats have shown the ability to adapt to efforts to control them, and rat infestations have increased as a result of budget reductions, more wasteful disposal of food, etc. Rats in New York have been known to overrun restaurants after hours, crawl up sewer pipes and enter apartments through toilets. They have also attacked homeless people, eaten cadavers in the city morgue, and bitten infants to get food off their faces. In 2003, a fire station in Queens was condemned and demolished after rats had taken over the building.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Singular needs drew me into the gray monotonies of Manhattan’s vertical valleys. Hyper capitalist heaven, the area adjoining “Rockefeller Center” is long familiar to me. During my post collegiate years, when a night shift at a certain large investment bank supplied me with working capital, my employment was enacted within one of the “international” style office buildings which seem small and atavist in modernity.

from wikipedia

Rats are known to burrow extensively, both in the wild and in captivity, if given access to a suitable substrate. Rats generally begin a new burrow adjacent to an object or structure, as this provides a sturdy “roof” for the section of the burrow nearest to the ground’s surface. Burrows usually develop to eventually include multiple levels of tunnels, as well as a secondary entrance. Older male rats will generally not burrow, while young males and females will burrow vigorously.

Burrows provide rats with shelter and food storage, as well as safe, thermoregulated nest sites. Rats use their burrows to escape from perceived threats in the surrounding environment; for example, rats will retreat to their burrows following a sudden, loud noise or while fleeing an intruder. Burrowing can therefore be described as a “pre-encounter defensive behavior”, as opposed to a “postencounter defensive behavior”, such as flight, freezing, or avoidance of a threatening stimulus.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

While walking to my destination on the Upper West Side, a certain intuition- one of being watched from afar- was upon me. Normally given to flights of paranoid imaginings, the sensation was ignored. Of course, given the crowds of tourists and normal every day New Yorkers flowing about, you’re bound to be watched by someone- or something- in this part of town.

Still, a nagging suspicion persisted that the surveillance sensed was somehow familiar.

from wikipedia

Saint Gertrude of Nivelles (also spelled Geretrude, Geretrudis, Gertrud) (ca. 621 – March 17, 659) was a seventh century abbess who, with her mother Itta, founded the monastery of Nivelles in present-day Belgium. While never formally canonized, Pope Clement XII declared her universal feast day to be March 17 in 1677. She is the patron saint of travelers, gardeners and cats, and against rats and mental illness.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Spinning about on my heels, the shocking revelation that even here- in the anonymous crowds of Midtown- one was in plain view of a shocking thing which cannot possibly exist which lurks in the cupola of the Sapphire Megalith of Long Island City. One turned north of Broadway, hoping to evade the burning and singular gaze of its triple lobed eye.

from wikipedia

Paranoia [ˌpærəˈnɔɪ.ə] (adjective: paranoid [ˈpærə.nɔɪd]) is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself. (e.g. “Everyone is out to get me.”) Making false accusations and the general distrust of others also frequently accompany paranoia. For example, an incident most people would view as an accident or coincidence, a paranoid person might believe was intentional.