The History of the Future:  The Last Really Good View

 

Following using the Grand Canyon as a landfill in 2060, and the collective nuking of Iguazu Falls in South America so the countries concerned would no longer have a reason to fight over it, the writers of Traveler magazine began to ponder just how many places were left on the earth that were truly worth going out of your way to see.  After two years of intense scrutinization, they found only one.  A hillside overlooking the James River just northeast of the small town of Hurley, Missouri, was determined to be the last picturesque place on the planet on August 11, 2063.

 

Real estate prices there immediately increased by 200,000%, and it instantly became a magnet for the super-rich, who had finally come to admit that the Moon was downright boring.  Those who could afford to be on that hillside just outside Hurley immediately began figuring out how to make money off those who could not. 

 

High rises soon appeared where people were willing to pay 1,000 U.S. adjusted dollars for a one minute (adjusted time) view.  Whenever one high rise would block the view, the one behind it would just make theirs higher.

 

Finally, in what has become known as the Great Collapse, on October 6, 2076, 100 square miles of high rise condos, hotels, and timeshares, spontaneously collapsed in on themselves and fell into the valley, obliterating everything that was once there to see.

 

Since so much of the world’s wealth was tied up in what simply became known as “That Place,” the world’s markets suffered a simultaneous collapse. Many of the 2.8 million wrongful death lawsuits are still making their way through the courts as of this writing.  And it is estimated that there isn’t a chance in hell that anyone will ever figure out who is really responsible for reimbursing those people who had placed deposits so their grandchildren might someday be able to eventually go there.

 

The only person to profit off the whole affair was a man named Gweev Flood, who bought the whole place for a song (which he didn’t even have to sing).  Gweev has since begun charging people a dollar apiece just so the could see what was once “That Place.”  There are plans for condominiums.