Artifacts

Millennia from now when paleontologists sift through the rubble of what was once the fabled city of Los Angeles, they might stumble upon five million black rectangles, some baffling golden arches, museum-quality hard drives, and empty sidewalks with blue tents. Suppose they discovered a couple of bowling balls and a basketball court. What could they possibly make of this? From all that, they will be tasked to reconstruct a civilization.

Legend had it that we were a city of frozen yogurt shops and something called nutmeg-dusted frappuccinos but those relics could not be found. 

Residue from the stomachs of us ancient humans offers sufficient evidence of a lifestyle and bone structure so that a face can be re-imagined. The alimentary canal of a devout vegan can easily be distinguished from a meatatarian’s mastications with the DNA of ketchup.

How could they reconcile hunger and obesity? What would they think having found particles of threads from red caps on the skeletal remains of a species of humanoids with altered brains, alongside issues of Scientific American and shards of Enlightenment texts? Did these people in the early 21st century live in the Dark Ages or a rather advanced culture? Very vexing.

How will we be seen in the natural history museum of the distant future? Dead fish alongside plastic baggies and Styrofoam cups, advanced electronics gone to weaponry, architectural wonders and oil slicks. What strange people we must have been.

Yet there are uncut forests, land mass still untouched by rising seas and high deserts with a havoc of wildflowers and remnants of violins. The diggers sifting through our remains are descendants of those who somehow survived the 21st century cataclysm in sufficient numbers to have started over again, stuck as they are with our double helix.