Footprints in Time

Foot Prints in Time.

I stood quietly on the raised portion
of the warehouse floor. I could see all of the milling
people and scattered equipment stretched out beneath me.
The auctioneer was firing off another staccato burst
of "whaddowehear? "whaddowehear? in an attempt to
solicit bids on the various pieces of equipment before
her. The process was fairly ordinary. It was just
another auctioneer orchestrating the sale of materials.
In this case, surplus equipment for the County of Erie,
in New York State.

It was the type of surplus equipment
that appeared so remarkable to me. The remains of a high
tech x-ray scanner stood mutely next to that of an old
particle separator for blood specimens. The next two
rows were laden with computer monitors, printers and
central processing units, many fully functional. Most
drew only moderate interest and even scantier bid
attention. In another setting, in the "third world, these
items would have comprised a treasure house of unimaginable
wealth. The detritus of modern technology, here so casually discarded,
are things that others on the planet have not yet even conjured
in their febrile imagination.

I could only muse at the contradictions
in space and time and technology. What would a 32nd
century A.D. Archeologist think of our society, based
upon the relics that lay herein?

The Archeologist would know that we were
capable of advanced communications and medical research. But, what would they make of the broken weight machine? Perhaps they might conclude that it was some sort of primitive "rack upon which confessions were extracted by a fierce and unforgiving prosecutor.They would wonder at the contradictions of an advanced society behaving in so brutal a fashion. They might never think of the purpose of a "weight machine for use in physical health improvement. I am sure we make the same erroneous assumptions when examining artifacts from our ancient cultures.

And the mass of computer monitors? What
would be thought of them? Perhaps it would be concluded
that they were behavioral monitors, used to watch the
activities of a recalcitrant population to insure
conformity. Or maybe it would be supposed that they
were just message boards from a larger, central computer
that gave us our daily instructions. By that time, the
notion of cyborgs, or people who are partially human and
partially cyber beings, will have probably evolved. How
will they view our primitive attempts to interface with
this whole notion of cyber space and sentient, silicon
based intelligence? They will think us awkward and slow witted, as we
do our own progenitors.

The auction proceeded with each
successive bid until the remainder of the equipment
trickled out from the Warehouse. The successful bidders
carried off their individual treasures,presumably to
give a rebirth in usage to each of the gadgets put up
for sale. "Technological Trickledown, I guess you would
call it. At the top end, the machinery of our age is used
to cure illness and rocket people to the stars. At the
bottom end, perhaps these vessels will eventually be
used to carry water or prop open a door to a shanty.
Such is the ignominy of the old, the useless and the
discarded. It is a troubling metaphor for me of the
human condition.

The sales completed and the people gone,
I saw but the empty floor of the old warehouse. I
wondered what treasures would next fill its space. And
then I wondered how far into the future will similar
auctions be held and what will be for sale in that far away
time? Could someone pick up an old Moon cruiser or maybe a
trans- teleportation chamber that is only a "little bit on the fritz?

Maybe they could pick up the odd photon phaser, or particle atomizer to fix up the living module or blast a tunnel through the odd mountain or two? Such things are left for another time. My musings done, I too left the warehouse, leaving it to ponder on its own the many treasures it had held. What an interesting story it will tell someday.

-30-

Joseph Xavier Martin