{"id":54606,"date":"2025-05-17T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/?p=54606"},"modified":"2025-05-17T08:07:38","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T07:07:38","slug":"meetings-of-the-underbridge-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/?p=54606","title":{"rendered":"Meetings of the Underbridge Society"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
Copyright Urban Mole<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Leipzig has a lot of bridges. The number varies, but if you\u2019re a troll looking to levy, you\u2019ve a good 430 to stand on. (Maybe more \u2014 the city\u2019s statistics office has published 6 volumes of bridges so far, relying on all the different municipal departments remembering where they laid them.) That makes it one of the bridgyest cities in Germany. It even beats Italy\u2019s Venice. (In number \u2014 beauty\u2019s another matter.)<\/p>\n

Rivers, streams, canals, ditches, brooks \u2014 they all need to be traversed. And here\u2019s the thing: whatever goes over has something that goes under, and under<\/em> the bridge is where the magic happens.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s where the currents cross. It\u2019s where I find their meeting place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Underbridge Society. Its members are shrouded in mystery and their meeting places are impromptu, but I stumble across their furnishings one sunny day in spring. Two plastic chairs \u2014 one pink, one white \u2014 are placed beside an upturned industrial spool. These must be the leaders\u2019 chairs, I think. They face a concrete bank that rises to the bridge above. The occasional tram rumbles overhead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I squat on the bank and try to imagine what they talk about. I see a bit of a clue on the white chair: someone\u2019s scrawled FCK AFD on the backrest. Poliitics then?<\/p>\n

I stand and walk around. I see that the centre of the spool table is scorched. It looks like more than the debate was heated. Maybe something was burnt as part of the opening ceremony. A heretical text perhaps? A heretic<\/em>? I look around for ash and bone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The thunder of another tram booms dramatically as I notice a headband on the ground. It\u2019s small and furry, has two fluffy bear ears and a polka dot bow. Something for a child. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Putting aside thoughts of dark Carthaginian rituals in Leipzig, I come to the more rational conclusion: changeling. It\u2019s common knowledge among a good three of the local Irish pub\u2019s patrons that Saxony has a shapeshifter problem. And here was the evidence: a magical band that, when worn, holds the wearer in human form. When removed \u2014 discarded? lost? \u2014 it retains the essence of the owner\u2019s animal form. In this case, a bear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I see a dog walker coming down the path and realise I\u2019ve the face of someone who\u2019s figured something out. I take a quick photo and head home, in the opposite direction.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Left-wing, militant, changeling bears. I wonder how I\u2019ll explain this to The Mathematician. I shrug. I\u2019ll cross that bridge when I come to it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following in the footsteps of Leipzig’s most notorious society. So nebulous, they’re practically non-existent …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":54604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[220,214,209,219,221],"class_list":{"0":"post-54606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cf","8":"tag-changeling","9":"tag-city-fables","10":"tag-leipzig","11":"tag-underbridge-society","12":"tag-urban-exploration"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54606"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54612,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54606\/revisions\/54612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanmole.is\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}