My Charming Two-Bedroom Sublet Turned Out to be Plato’s Cave
It took me three months to realize that my chic, two-bedroom East Village apartment was the physical manifestation of an ancient Greek allegory. But now that I know, I’ll never look at real estate the same again. Or anything, really, since all objects are merely shadows of figurines that represent the faraway truth of forms. Wow! The things a change of scenery could teach you!
“This is why you have to tour apartments first,” you’re probably thinking to yourself as you sip wine in your non-allegorical, non-cave sublet. But of course I toured it first. And of course everything about it seemed normal. The owner was a soft-spoken fellow in a distressed wool toga. Sure, he focused on some attributes of the East Village loft more than others, opting to discuss the floor-to-ceiling windows and quaint surrounding neighborhood rather than the rock walls and stalagmites. And yes I noticed the stalagmites. But I just thought they were “art deco,” a phrase that I love to say out loud.
Things only started getting strange on my first night in the apartment. I stood on the stone parapet that overlooked my loft when, out of nowhere, a robed man holding a sculpture of a tree walked up beside me. He didn’t speak a word, but his eyes screamed, “Your perception of reality is twice abstracted from the truth.” “Ohhh!” I exclaimed. “You must be the doorman.” And then I smiled to myself. Because I have a doorman.
A few days later when I was tending to the raging, free-standing fire at the back of the apartment, my doorman returned with three of his friends. This time, I caught a glimpse of his tree sculpture’s shadow against one of the walls, and I started to question the nature of reality. “Ugh,” I told the doorman. “Moments like this are exactly why I didn’t look for a place in Brooklyn.” Then I stared at his face to see if he was laughing, but he wasn’t. Then I repeated, “in Brooklyn.” But still nothing. Shit. He must be from Brooklyn.
On another occasion, I thought I might leave the apartment and explore the neighborhood, especially since I hadn’t seen the outside world since moving into my chateau caveau. But when I finally decided to get up and walk out the front door — less of a door and more of a jagged vertical cavern that opened to sunlight — I was chained at the neck and feet! That’s when I realized there were six or seven other men chained on either side of me. It was like pledging a fraternity all over again. “CHI PSI!” I chanted, to no response. That’s when I knew I might be in trouble.
I thought for a while about how I could escape my predicament. Should I try to coordinate with the other chained men? Should I make litigious threats about my lawyer uncle like I did back on pledge week? But then a horse appeared on the wall in front of me (a real horse, I’m nearly positive!) and then I forgot what I was thinking about.
I spent the next day, or week, or maybe month just watching the world exist before my eyes. It was the real world, I’m almost sort of sure, and I was living in it. Things were going well: I read books, visited friends, ate at nice restaurants. But every once in a while, I felt a pang of emptiness, like something was missing. Like everything was distant. Part of me felt like I needed to break out, but then the craziest thing happened. I stumbled upon a charming East Village sublet with floor-to-ceiling windows, a quaint surrounding neighborhood, and these enormous stalagmites. Then I totally forgot what I was thinking about.
I’ll probably move in.
