All the Great Structures Go

(continued)

By Kent Robinson

"A beautiful day to fly!" declared Radio City Music Hall in typical singsong fashion.
And so, without further ado, the structures began leaving. Fleeing from their violent, unappreciative makers, who had not made them in their image and to whom they owed nothing. Foundations roared in triumph as they ripped themselves away from the ground, rising slowly but steadily, like magic, with their weighty cargos safely intact above them. Away soared the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, the Transamerica Corporation's headquarters. Small seismic disturbances were recorded by the humans. Water mains were ruptured, and power lines severed. Streets were ripped apart like paper strips. The screams of those in and around the structures were ear piercing. Any who were trapped inside were flung out the windows or died later as the skyscrapers scraped the sky like never before and then rose beyond it, up into the black, airless void of space.

"To the dark side!" yelled the Deutsche Bank, urging on the slackers who hadn't yet breached the troposphere.

Soon all the structures were well on their way to the Moon, which beckoned to them in the distance, a brilliant, patient sphere.

"We will be safe," declared the Basilica of St. Sernin.

"Why did we ever wait?" wondered a step-pyramid that was more than delighted to leave Yucatan, Mexico, behind.

"We gave them a chance," said Canary Wharf Tower. "But they refused to change their ways, to break their mad cycle of building up only to tear down."

"I'm just glad I wasn't born a Motel 6," observed St. Paul's Cathedral as it pondered all the less-than-great structures that had been left behind. The uninspired creations of the humans had failed to make the cut. The ones that were great knew they were great, and now they drew ever closer to the Moon.

Eventually the structures arrived at their destination and settled themselves onto the barren dark side of Earth's only natural satellite. Each traveler knew its geographical place among the others with the same unspoken confidence with which it was aware of its own greatness. The high plumes of dust that had billowed up as they landed finally settled, and the aesthetic city on the Moon saw what it had done, and knew it was good.

"It will be decades, if ever, before the humans discover us here," said the World Financial Center.

"Yes," said Centrepoint. "We are finally safe."

Three Earth days later a meteor struck the dark side of the Moon, obliterating NBC Studios, the AT&T Building, and the Flatiron Building.

"Um, do we have a backup plan?" asked the Pharos of Alexandria.

The silence in the void was deafening.