THE WAR FOR AMERICA'S SECRET TREASURE
The horde runs riot in downtown. Storefronts are punched out like so many paper ballots. You stand alert in the chaotic intersection and swivel your head right and left until your eyes fixate on one place, drawn like a paperclip to a magnet. And then you charge toward it with broken glass and shell casings crunching underfoot.
As you approach, others rush into the boutique like a colony of bats invading a cavernous roost. You reflexively follow. Once in the sanctum, you stop to gaze upon a frantically concentrated swarm. You, too, are helplessly drawn toward a scrum so dense it forms a thick and undulating membrane around an obscured and trembling nucleus. Within the sudden hive, toes are stomped and ribs are poked, but there isn't enough space to throw a punch. Looters obey a moderating code of conduct not written in honor or decency, but by proximity and passion.
Outside the crush, sundry merchandise remains scattered about the floor and askew on the shelves. But only the weak peel away from the great competition to pick at those plentiful but sinewy remains. You are not weak. You run right by. You take your just and proper place on the periphery of the impacted horde and, like everyone else, you wedge your way in toward the heart of the great unity with a singular sense of entitlement.
"What is it?" you blurt out in manic delirium.
"Gold watches! Rolex and Hublot!" shouts a comrade. "Watches?" inquires another; "I heard it was the new iPhone!" The crowd relaxes for a second, briefly flummoxed, and then they re-energize their determination and resume their furious inward crush toward an intoxicatingly indeterminate prize.
Oh, what magnificent bounty must gleam at the core to compel such a relentless and desperate implosion of yearning!
The world is fighting over America, and it doesn't even know why.
What priceless trove lies hidden within the majestic purple mountains or beneath the waving stalks of amber grain? What immeasurable wealth rouses kings and pirates from their distant and luxurious repose? Is it the Holy Grail, long ago secreted away from Jerusalem, ready to pour forth an honest and humble legacy which was jealously overwritten by Imperial Rome? Or is it the Ark of the Covenant, impatiently awaiting the fulfillment of its triumphant destiny at the command of just the right emperor?
After the Teutons plundered Europa of all her precious gold, maybe America snatched this ultimate jewel from the last Fuhrer's withering grip and hurried it away to the protective arms of Mother Columbia. Perhaps, it is the boundlessly glorious future promised by otherworldly technology that inexplicably fell from an azure New Mexico sky. Or, it might be an archive of grand mysteries uncloaked by a once-great antediluvian civilization, later rescued from the smoldering library at Alexandria before the Saracens could immolate all that they deemed forbidden.
Alas, it might be a fortune unimaginable: worth more than all the foregoing legends in aggregate.
The truth of America's greatest treasure is, at present, unrecognizable to most. But what is now fully revealed by tumult are not the details of its sacred inventory, but its manifest worth. Because the world is openly fighting for it. Because America is fighting over it. And most don't even know why. All that they understand is they must now join the swarm. Never mind the scruffy and agitated waifs on the street. It is the monarchs, magicians, moguls and magnates who truly run riot in America, because they sense that its incalculable treasure is loosed and is now finally within their immediate grasp.
If a champion should emerge from this cynical Olympiad, doubtless, he will hoist the gilded bounty above his head for all to know and see, and then, he'll watch the exhausted masses tremble and bow before a mesmerizing talisman. For we must bow at the feet of the victor in order to bow before the sacred artifact whilst he holds it aloft.
Perhaps this explains why America's greatest treasure has always remained in obscurity: embraced by many but possessed by no one.
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Anon.