The Cave Of Adventure

You walk home from work through Citadel Park.

This fine October afternoon is just warm enough that you are comfortable in the light cashmere cardigan and skirt you bought for exactly this kind of weather, an elegant dark green outfit that goes well with your strawberry blonde hair.

The park is clad in glorious autumn tones, the reddening leaves of tall beeches, maples, and oak trees catching the final rays of the low afternoon sunlight. Its large pond is overpopulated with geese that aggressively beg for food to anyone that dares to approach them. It has a little pavilion that sometimes hosts open-air concerts with slightly-out-of-tune brass instruments played by elderly gentlemen. The crumbling seats of its open-air theatre are covered in moss and lichen.

But by far the park’s most striking feature is the complex of artificial caves at its center. These are simply called “the Caves” by the people of the city of Ghent. Overgrown with ivy on the outside, the Caves have artful stalagmites and stalactites and three passageways on the inside. It takes less than two minutes to walk through the main, center passageway, a shortcut you often take on your way home through the park. The Caves have their own microclimate, a slightly damp, musty atmosphere that smells vaguely of basement. You will sometimes just stand and pause there, taking refuge in the stillness after a busy day at work.

Those stalagmites and stalactites are fake, as is everything else about the Caves, which are somewhat grotesque, molded from big blocks of concrete, daubed with layers of plaster and paint. The walls are covered with graffiti—most of it small, inconspicuous, scribbled with sharpies and blunt pencils rather than spray paint.

Rumor has it that the Caves hosted an exhibition with aquariums