Field Notes

Being a record of certain phenomena found in the environs of the Lost Quarter.  

Regarding Monuments

There are few monuments to be found in the Quarter. It has never been that sort of place. The wooden grain elevators that used to tower above each town would seem to qualify, yet they are unremarkable in the sense that every town in the surrounding regions had one as well. Most are gone now, fallen into disrepair or torn down, replaced by concrete elevators that loom far taller on the landscape. That is the fate of every construction in the Quarter it seems. So many of the railroads that once crisscrossed these parts have been pulled up, replaced by highways that pass by abandoned homesteads, with houses that are slowly falling into disrepair, being reclaimed by the landscape. The first inhabitants of this place left only stone rings where their tipi’s stood, before they were driven into exile.  

It seems that will be the fate of much of what has been built by Those Who Came as well. The home I grew up in will certainly not stand for centuries, marking the passing years as homes do in other places. It will be torn down or left to disintegrate, depending on the inclination of whoever comes to possess it. Even the towns and villages cannot hold here. They are abandoned slowly, street by street, building by building. People move to other towns, but most leave the Quarter altogether. Few return, for the ways back are difficult and slowly being forgotten by all who once passed along those roads. 

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