monument.

--but by God! What a miracle! What a colossal testament to the might and the mightiness of mankind, he thought excitedly, his neck strained as far backward as it could go, in a futile attempt to scale the thing with his eyes. The union of scientific majesty and man's infinite creative instinct, the pinnacle of man's potential--

He breathed in sharply, tasting the brightness of a crisp dew-flecked morning.

A thousand rays of light glinted off the metallic walls that wound through the clouds, winking eyes that burned with pride and a heady promise. They had spoken once, at its inception, of piercing the foundations of heaven itself. Who need concern themselves now with the dim, archaic pettiness of allegory?

His head spun with an intoxicating gilded euphoria, while the continuous belt of solemn-eyed slaves, laden with woven baskets of bitumen, rolled ever onward and upward in a dwindling spiral.

This, indeed, was glory, if ever glory could be seen: to harness the monolithic force of man united, invincible, exercising unstoppable dominion over the very universe.