Emergency Opening:
Time Capsule buried, January 30, 2014:
Time Capsule opened, January 30, 2114:

Ceremony Commencement: (Mayor speaking)
“We are gathered here, on this day to recover
a time capsule from 100 years ago.
Please, with white gloves, commence the
observation.”

Observation:
No precious metal could have saved it.
Rusty ball, with perfect signs of decay inside-out.
Time is patient with its patterns.
A forgotten world of blue patina deeply stains.
Bolts no longer held snug by nuts.
Box once melted together,
titanium welded shut.

Laser etched box, includes message:
Inside box is another box.
Lives another box.
DNA encoded is your codex.
Plexiglass and blown glass lined.
Vacuum sealed.
Materials only goal, to shield time.

To remain easily accessible.
Follow etched directions.
Documents can be seen through
transparent seams.
One single strain of DNA contain the knowledge
of our time. Our stories. Our cultures.
Our religions. Our current technologies.
Our entire cultural legacy.
Injected. Encoded. The world’s library.

All human DNA ever collected ready
for genetic download. All animals ever
known, exist now only in code.

This our life’s collection written
to pass along all of earthly evolution
in a box, for a single upload.
Transceiver to receiver, never quiver. Listen
Before you there is wonder.
For those who have survived,
there is time.

End of Transmission.

Audience Participation:
I thought this was going to give us a map
to some food?
What is DNA?
What is a library?
When he writes the word code, is that code
for something?
This thing says there is time but we are starving.
Can we sell it?
Who would buy it?

Mayor:
We need to see the big picture here.
Our entire forgotten history and the keys to all
the animals have been given back to us.
I know it’s hard to hear through a poem
that it will be okay but we are alive. And
we do have time.

Maybe in the next time capsule, we put in it
some matches or a mirror or something. Diamonds.
Gold. Photos we can see without a machine.
Information we can use without knowing anything.

Audience:
And now Mayor?

Mayor:
We put it back. Open it in another hundred years.
Maybe we’ll have science again by then.
Maybe we can be human one day again. For now
Winter is coming, there is no time to spare.
The rest of the day, collect fuel for fire. Stay warm,
another storm is coming.