Sedalia Battlefield Memorial Park
This installation was only recently discovered, as it was buried under quite a bit of silt in the Sedalia Reservoir just south of Sedalia, Missouri. Presumably, this was done deliberately, although when it comes to determining intent the historical records are inconclusive, at best. Which last is a common feature in when it comes to the Sedalia Battlefield Memorial Park.
Assuming that the entire Park is dredged, it will reveal a set of five small stone buildings set in a circle around a small cenotaph. The non-stone interiors of the buildings have long since rotted away, of course: but each building has marble statues of representatives of the inhabitants of each continent (Eurasia is one building) and some surviving stained-glass windows showing famous people or events. There are suggestions of kneeling pews and curtains, but only faint ones.
In the center sits the cenotaph, with the following inscription in English, Mandarin, Arabic, and Hindu:
On June 23, 1846, the last Humans on Earth gathered here on honorable field of battle and chose to honorably perish, rather than accept Amalgamation. Let this monument stand as a testimony to their honor and courage, and as a rebuke to our pride and arrogance. And may their God have mercy on us for our sins.
Dedicated this day, June 23, 1921 by order of President Warren G. Harding, presiding.
…And that’s it. As noted, the historical records are, well, sketchy. Nonexistent, even. There’s definitely nothing in the electronic records, and the physical ones in the area apparently had a distressing tendency to catch fire over the years. All of which would suggest a coverup, except… look, this site is suggesting that some time in the 1840s there was a genocidal war of some kind that humanity lost – only, we’ve never heard about it. And that people knew about it seventy-five years later, if ‘people’ is the right term, since apparently they’re descended from whoever-it-was that won said genocidal war; and then forgot to mention it to their descendants. And then, of course, they decided still later to cover the whole thing up. Somehow. Note that ‘they’ at this point is starting to mean ‘we.’
Really, the entire thing sounds like something out of a David Brin short story (“Detritus Affected,” and what might Brin know?), but – where are the bones? There were bones in that story. So many, many bones…
I suppose this means that the rumors about Harding’s death being an assassination are true in this setting.
Moe, this is really well done. It is still creeping me out a day later. Maybe you ought to develop this into a short story?
It’s a thought, but here’s the problem: if I did it as a short story then I’d have to tell how it happened. And damned if I know how it happened, either. 🙂