Neologism: apparchitecture

San Francisco. Night. Not only is the city old but there’s a housing shortage and rent control. Residents aren’t moving as quickly and, with big money being snorted up SF’s nostrils, they’re also not being evicted. The nouveau riche stratum is stagnant, clogging the infrastructure of a breathing machine. Where there’s stagnation, there’s paranormal activity: think haunted houses, think silent woods, think cemeteries, think wardrobes.

Once upon a time on Folsom there was an elementary school. The municipality tore it down, rebuilt a new one across the street and turned the leveled site into a city park. There’s a basketball court, a mini community garden, a mound of grass where dogs play, a baseball field, and a playground with a sign that says “Adult must be accompanied by child.” The city’s jail and courthouse is the mountain range to its prairie.

Every morning I pass the park on my way to work. The space has a particular smell, one similar to toasting pop-tarts. It took me months to locate the origin; a nearby coffee roasting company.

One night, I was on the bus, a bus driving down Folsom and we passed the park. Standing, about 20’ tall, was a humanoid creature. It was completely still and had a glowing green Cyclops eye. Its skin was multicolored and, if I could see these shades in the dark, must have been exquisite by daylight. The eye was studying. The eye was absorbing. Its perspective on what it saw must have been something like time-lapse photography. It saw streams of white and red light, the frenetic blinking on and off of building lights, the path of the moon.

The bus drove on, out of its angle and sight.

The next morning the Cyclops figure was still there. It wasn’t an alien probe or being but a sculpture shelled with whole and broken colored vinyl. For me this statue falls under an interesting category of architecture: “Has that always been there?” Structures that exist but only become apparent, or seem to appear, during direct observation, often with an exclamation of surprise or disbelief.