MicroHorror

Since September 11, 2001, the Statue of Liberty has been closed to visitors. No field trip or tourist has taken the walk up her central spiral staircase and peered out the windows of her crown. The explanation is that she is not guaranteed safe from terrorists–which is true but is not the reason for the closure. During an intensive search for bombs immediately after 9/11, a copperish blob was found on the ascending banister, at about the statue’s waist. It was assumed to be gum, but in the days it took to officially declare the statue bomb-free, the blob had doubled in size. It was a forgotten curiosity until a guard several months later patrolled the vacant structure and found the blob as big as a football. Was this some fungus? It was growing like one, although it was pure copper. It soon grew to a point where the ascending staircase was blocked by the mass. The mayor’s office recommended the mass be chipped off and removed, but no one who climbed the staircase was willing to do so. As it grew, it developed features–a head at one end, and feet at the other. Nobody vocalized such an unrealistic thought as the Statue of Liberty being pregnant, or could even explain the logic behind it. But everyone who viewed the mass could tell you she was having a boy.