Twenty thousand years from now, weary and starved for home, our descendants will arrive back on Earth, which they'd let lie fallow for nineteen thousand years.
They will dig into the accretions of dust and dirt layered over everything we built. They will discover tantalizing signs of the lives of long-forgotten ancestors, such as strange markings on ancient pathways.
Scholars will conclude 21st century humans were surely bipedal, but travelled in great long hops. And their clothes shed pigment as part of some devotional ritual.
Others will argue that the enigmatic markings are the remnants of a game. They will use the hopscotch hypothesis as analogous proof.
These two schools of thought will battle vigorously with one another for years as if the answer to the puzzle mattered at all.
One upstart, a specialist in ante-departural epidemiology, will recover records once thought destroyed, and propose that these are markings on a sidewalk in the aid of an obscure ritual called special resistancing (the translation is in some doubt).
That researcher will die unrecognized, then be remembered reverentially when everyone finally sees that she was right.
Ah ... who am I kidding? Twenty thousand years from now, we'll still be in this goddam pandemic.
Thanks for reading.
Happy American Thanksgiving!
Karen
 |
| Oh, look: another Picasso exhibit. |
No comments:
Post a Comment