The Madrid Square Where You Can Travel Through Space and Time

Just a few meters away from Gran Vía in Madrid lies the Plaza de la Luna. This space is named after Santa María Soledad Torres Acosta, the founder of the Sisters of Mary, Ministers of the Sick. In the 1980s, this site hosted the Luna Cinemas, in the area of the square where Luna Street ends, hence its name. Although it currently usually houses a Christmas market during the last month of the year, this space has another peculiarity.

In this place, we find the umbrasphere, a circular bronze plaque embedded in the ground that, according to legends, serves to alter space-time and grant us access to another world. On the plaque, we find the following inscription: "Today we call it Plaza de la Luna, but its original name was Plaza de las Lunas, because the glow of these marked the boundaries of the square. In the times of Kcymaerxthaere, every 257 orbits of our visible moon converged here, eclipsing the 29 invisible moons of the 29 alternate dimensions (each symbolizing the 29 infinite negatives of any xthaere), all in their fullness (some were larger than our planet), gathered in this space. This conjunction of forces may be the cause or the consequence of this square being an unusual portal of incalculable value, a seemingly peaceful door to the umbrasphere, the connection between all shadows, darkness, and penumbra on this planet we call Earth."

And it doesn't end there, because the story continues: "This square was once dangerous, as the different dimensional series of shadows chained their darkest zones, forming a powerful travel route in the umbrasphere, which was traversed by the boldest travelers to avoid the ywrengs (time borders). It was here, in the Plaza de las Lunas, where Nobunaga-Ventreven, freshly arrived from the lichens' gwomes, in the place we call Soria, followed the fastest route to Segoleno, a site as inaccessible as it is remote, but once you arrive there, the traveler finds themselves paradoxically close to any other point in the universe. There, the encounter took place with Eliana Mei-Ning, the woman with the inconceivably beautiful voice, leaving her mark on the Battle of Some Times, where Kmpass, the Urgende God of Directionality, was defeated when he tried to destroy all the complexity of the world. It is the function and duty of Plaza de la Luna to preserve the wealth of Kcymaerxthaere, which is why we celebrate here every linear year the glory and chiaroscuro that defines the Festival of the Rested Moons."

The plaque was created by Eames Demetrios, grandson of the popular architects and designers Charles and Ray Eames, and is part of the project 'The project's Geographer-at-Large'. This consists of an experimental science fiction novel told in chapters across the 80 plaques that, like this one in Plaza de la Luna, are distributed around the world. In Spain, in fact, we have two others, in Pedraza (Segovia) and Losana (Soria).

If you ever find the courage to set foot on this enigmatic plaque, you might discover an unknown dimension and be transported to one of those cities that houses one of the 80 plaques. Or maybe nothing will happen, but if you don't try, you'll never know.