Messages in Bottles : the North Lakes.The north lakes are blessed with numerous rivers and tributaries. These criss-cross their way down from the heights to join the larger rivers and eventually find their way to the sea.
By the time I left the North Lakes I was injecting into these rivers two messages in bottles per day.
One of these messages varied each day and was housed traditionally in an empty wine bottle. Sometimes it would be a simple message “greatness is from within for without” or “a bullet can silence a man but even a whole army cannot silence an idea”. These were sent with the specific hope that the receiver of the message would consider their meaning.
Other times a news paper cutting would be sent, sometimes a sketch, sometimes a betting slip for a random horse that had yet to run…
Of course by the end, each day as well as these more traditional messages I also sent the mandatory samples of urine.
At first these were collected in moments of laziness when the toilet seemed too far away and would thus force the use of any bottle that came to hand. In the early stages these were not even sent out into the world but simply emptied out of the window into the central courtyard of the hotel; and I’d amuse myself with the various prospects of this 17th century behaviour.
However eventually a sense of social responsibility kicked in and it became apparent that I had to overcome this laziness and instead of wasting these valuable piss filled bottles I had to put them to a truly good use – some kind of use that could maybe one day benefit the entire of the future mankind.
And so it was then that the traditional messages were joined each day by another bottle that contained a sample of my own urine – collected in plastic bottles and only half filled to maintain buoyancy.
Being plastic the bottles would not degrade in the natural world for many hundreds of years and in that urine would be recorded the DNA of a far sighted 21st century citizen. In the future these bottles might provide an invaluable link to the past. Through the water systems these bottles would be carried far and wide (and very efficiently given that no extra energy would be required to take them on their long journeys).
But what is that the future will require from us? Mere samples? Evidence of our existence? Records of our routines?
I do not pretend to know the answer but what I offered the future was simple. I offered the future my own unique excrement and so let them make of it what they will.
May god speed you sweet samples.
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