by Bill Shein
October 14, 2015
“Five hundred years, a thousand years. Who knows?” – Paul Joffe, developer of the old Methodist Church site in downtown Great Barrington, on when 100 time capsules being buried in cement under the restaurant-and-retail complex might be discovered.
GREAT BARRINGTON, October 1, 3015 – Construction droids using their vision lasers to prepare the site of Great Barrington’s 400th large, upscale “boutique” hotel stumbled onto a surprise this week when they uncovered a cache of human-made “time capsules” buried approximately 1,000 sun rotations ago.
The badly damaged containers, made of a primitive material called “stainless steel” that couldn’t withstand the environmental changes that unfolded rapidly after 2020, were moved to the new offices of the Great Barrington Historical Society – which, after more than 1,000 years of delays, financial shenanigans, sales and re-sales, scandals and re-scandals, scams and re-scams, hoodwinking and re-hoodwinking, finally opened last week at the site of the “old” Great Barrington fire house in the McCormickville section of town.
Local robot officials immediately received news of the discovery via their SentientCore™ sensors, and materialized moments later to examine the time capsules. The construction droids were powered down for a few minutes, though their vocal units continued to make random, sexist catcalls at nonexistent human women who were not walking past the site.
“This is a very interesting development,” said Select Board member GFWA-153a. “This church-like structure was utilized by human beings in the practice of their religion. Which, as best as we can tell, was the worship of both shopping and expensive, elaborately prepared nutrition. There is substantial evidence here of a structure adorned at one time with religious symbols in which upscale retail stores and food-ingestion ports were located.”
With its titanium outer skin warming rapidly in the 185-degree late afternoon sun, GFWA-153a paused to be cooled by a refreshing spray of liquid nitrogen. “Even the shade provided by a Bradford pear tree wouldn’t help right now,” it quipped. The gathering of robot officials didn’t understand, but still responded by playing recordings of 1950s TV sitcom laugh-track laughter, as they are programmed to do.
“What is a tree?” asked one new robot, still not fully programmed with MemoryNews™ of the former human-dominated Earth.
The interesting find came only days after archaeology droids working nearby discovered large pieces of gray stone believed to be from the early 21st century “Curbgate” scandal in Great Barrington. According to legal droids connected to the SentientWeb™ information resource, human officials in Great Barrington had “redeveloped” their “downtown” area in part by erecting an inexplicable and unsightly array of large stone “curbs” along the main thoroughfare. Placed in odd locations, at inconsistent heights, in dangerous and physics-defying configurations, and seemingly for no apparent reason, the curbs led to so many accidents, injuries, and trip-and-fall lawsuits that the town was soon driven into bankruptcy.
Historical Society Director 45234YE-Pa.1 said the contents of the time capsules would be fully inventoried and made available for viewing by robots with appropriate security clearances. However, it said some items had been declassified, including:
— A small paper “BerkShares” currency document featuring historical figure W.E.B. DuBois, for whom a local school may have been named, though archaeology droids have yet to find it.
— A menu from a food-ingestion port called “The Deli,” across which was written, “My last affordable meal in Great Barrington.”
— A red, white and blue adhesive strip printed with “STATE REPRESENTATIVE SMITTY PIGNATELLI,” a combination of interesting-but-previously unknown words that have so far mystified robot linguists.
— A faded, typewritten note that says, “Please, future people and/or robots, use your time-travel technology to return to 2013 and stop the ‘downtown redevelopment’ project before it’s too late!”
Questioned by an obviously malfunctioning robot, 45234YE-Pa.1 denied reports that one of the capsules contained a still-living seedling of a Bradford pear tree, which would be what humans might have called “a miracle.”
Moments later, the malfunctioning robot was calmly vaporized by Select Board member GFWA-153a’s laser vision, and the construction droids went back to work on Upscale Hotel No. 400.
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Bill Shein’s irrational fear of robots is addressed during his thrice-weekly therapy sessions.
(This column first appeared in The Berkshire Record newspaper on Friday, October 2, 2015.)