Center of the Universe

I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that out of every city in the world (this world, that is), it’s New York City that overlaps. I still haven’t quite figured out why. I’ve wandered the streets of windy Chicago, strolled along the spotless streets of Shanghai, shielded my eyes from the chill of London rain, but those cities rest solely in our world. This world. The one that you and I reside in and call him, the one that you think is the only one.

You’re wrong, by the way. Not that I have the greatest frame of reference- points of overlap between our world and that one are few and far between- but if you could see the Big Apple, the Center of the Universe, the City that Never Sleeps through my eyes, you would understand.

You see, New York City, the version that you can see, is crowded enough as it is. You can’t walk five feet without nearly crashing into another human being, and just try making it another five without having to dodge a tourist excitedly holding up a camera. There’s people everywhere. People filling up every spare inch of the place. People drawn here to this hubbub of character and life and cultural interchange and the best damn pizza in the world.

Now, what if I were to tell you that there are even more people in NYC than you think? It’s hard to tell, but there’s a teenage girl standing in between that infatuated couple right over there, their interlaced hands poking through her rib cage as she licks a lollipop and mutters into a headset. And to your three o’ clock, that circle of children sitting on the ground, rolling spiky silver balls between their hands and moving their lips to the lyrics of a song I can’t hear either, all while men in business suits and hotdog costumes alike walk straight through them. And to your immediate right, see that woman in her tin foil dress as she storms through a mob of college kids laughing over coffee? Of course you don’t.

These people, the ones you don’t see, they’re here but they’re not.

They’re in New York City, but they’re not.

They exist, but they don’t.

Not in our world. Not in our dimension.

But somewhere out there, there’s another New York City, much like ours, filled with people just like ours. Somewhere out there, there’s another world filled with cities like Chicago and Shanghai and London, but not, that overlaps with ours right here. Right in New York City.

Right in the Center of the Universe.