The city's surface may be clean-shaven from where you stand. But look just a little deeper into the dermal layers and it doesn't take long to find the microbial contamination that you like to think doesn't exist.
A corner store sits aside a 40+ storey monument to corporate greed in the heart of the CBD, only a dark alley separates them. A council kerb-sweeper inches by, making the streets gleam. Across the road, a few dozen under-30s are inebriating themselves on distillate. None notices our silent retreat into the shadows of the private alley.
Silently moving boxes to clear the wet ground beneath, we bend down and open a hatch that few remember even exists any more.
The city grows up around us. Like childhood memories that we tend to forget over time, little parts of the city disappear as it moves on with its busy life. Finding these forgotten parts gives an indescribable feeling.
Six or seven rooms, linked by The Incredible Hulk walk-through-smashed-brick-holes. It's not much. But appreciation for such surreal surroundings isn't something that just comes and goes in minutes. We spent much time down here, in awe that something this old could exist below polished granite walls and bright city lights.
A part of me hopes that we will continue to forget things as we rush from place to place in our modern lives. It's because of this human behaviour that places like this are born.
