[ WP ] It 's frozen in time . Forever waiting , forever watching . Then one day , it moves

`` Sir, I do n't know how to put it, exactly.'' The sergeant sweated, holding the phone slightly away from his ear. `` The Sphinx... got away!'' An incredulous string of curses in Arabic flowed from the handset. 
 
 *** 
 
 President Harriet Hanahan regarded the bearded caller's face on her telescreen. `` You're telling me you saw Mount Rushmore get up and walk away?'' Intelligence had reached her already of the disappearance of the Sphinx. Egyptian authorities had denied reports that the statue-temple had come alive, crushing the military encampment temporarily erected around it, screaming in a language unknown to the soldiers - or anyone living, other than a few professors of ancient languages. Still, she had n't expected whatever had caused the'getaway' of the stone lion with its massive Pharaoh's head and the gates on its ribcage to spread so quickly to the States. A getaway - that's what the media were calling it. She wondered if that's what her favorite national park had done, gotten away. 
 `` Not the whole mountain, Ms. President.'' The man spoke slowly, his words ringing as if across mountains - he was one of Rushmore's caretakers, and spent most of his time on one or another part of the mountain. `` The Presidents. Their hands.. huge, the fingernails longer than a grown man, they came out of the ground, about where you'd expect, same pale granite as the faces, they pulled themselves out of the ground and walked off.'' He smiled, though his face was pale. `` I never really -got- just how tall old Abe was.'' 
 
 *** 
 
 China had said nothing about the dragon, uncountable miles long, that had been reported continuously flying the country's perimeter, or, more precisely, the old borders of the height of the Ming Dynasty. 
 
 *** 
 
 The crowd, flowing out of every building building with a window in sight of the Arc de Triomphe, as well as the cars stopped in the middle of the Champs Elysees by the sudden presence of five statues, four standing around the massive arch, well-dressed white stone giants with impassive faces, one, a yellow cat with a man's face and a headdress which was found ridiculous by the modern Parisian onlookers, atop the arch itself and enraged. 
 `` I AM RAMSES, LORD OF THE NILE! THOMAS JEFFERSON HAS TAUGHT ME FRENCH! WHERE IS YOUR'NAPOLEON', AND WHAT HAS HE DONE WITH MY NOSE, BY THE PITS OF OSIRIS?!''
