One day, not too far away, the whole country sank – it suddenly slumped down about a thousand feet in the middle just where most of the coal had been dug out over the centuries.  To be honest, it was more of a depression than a crater, about one hundred miles in diameter just about equal distance from its northern and southernmost tips and likewise east and west.

It gave a lot of people the feeling that they were standing on a slope.

It didn’t happen all of a sudden like an earthquake – it took place over several years.  Scientists and geologists were the first to notice, and they tried to think of ways to stop the sinking.  One idea was to fill the hole up with excess gases from all the pollution, and inflate the ground under the depression until it rose up like a balloon – kill two birds with one stone, they said.  But it didn’t work very well, the gas leaked out here there and everywhere, and even after they thought they’d stopped the leaking, the darned stuff still came out way up north, so that part of the country got even more polluted than it was before, and the people there got really annoyed because they naturally thought the Southerners were doing it on purpose.

end