Archaeology (Digital)

Timepast ref by neutrino-entanglement sets
our specimen at one hundred million orbits. Code
decompression layers painstakingly teased out of
the holo-cores along universe-edge 6.12.7 produces

a small blue shape–cross-reference
archive :: specimen-origin symbology — bird.

The data set in simple binary proves easier to crack than does
skimming the holo-substrate of any given universe. Paleo-anthros delight
for the data core entact. Archaes trace its connections to other sets
on a ‘net’. Linguists have already come and gone, leaving scattered
bits of meaning amidst ever mounting noise.

Under the light of a pale lamp, the archae carefully separates
the entact threads with forceps of light, flicks away random
bits with a very small brush. The p-a breathes heavily
over the shoulder in anticipation. The archae sneezes;
the p-a faints dead away.

Out of rambles, brambles, and thickets of long chains of slivers
of nothing and something (zeroes and ones, upspins and downspins)
emerge, with careful coaxing, the linking structures to the layers
of language above the briar. The p-a salivates in anticipation
then nearly faints again as the view at briar-level zooms
upward and up. Archae algos swarm through translations
to reveal the entire tableau of connections — soaring cathedrals
of pulsing light against a backdrop of silence — the indelible footprint,
the unmistakable patterns of a species’ cognition, reverse-engineered
out of an intact archive discovered on the substrate
of the found holographic that was our universe.

#

What will our conversations here look like? Will they ever know
that we repeated them in spirals as we spiraled through
the unknown galactic space around us?

Was it Greece in its heyday as the origin of a world? Or
was is it China in height of lyrical dynasty? Or the Old
Roman Empire during the Renaissance? Or was it
yesterday that eager students sat, lay, stood, and
listened as sages spoke, or today that we sit, lie, stand,
recline, exercise, fly, drive, eat, chill, grill, orbit a planet
and tell the world while we’re at it, while foraging
among the disconnected lines of sages pressing their
words into light, under the shadow of a small, blue bird?

“Come get your two bits, your four bytes for a dollar,”
“See the wonders of the ancient world! Five for two,
a one-time offer!” “Nice ladies to speak with should
the inclination arise,” “These are the most comfortable
socks I’ve ever worn,” “Twelve days or your money back,”
they all cry in unison, shouting and cajoling in bits of free
verse that circle the globe in made games of ingrown
marketing. The words change but their meaning follows us
through time, as sometimes do their wares. Some we click,
some we scroll right by.

What of the pioneers, building the stuff of dreams — a man
and a tower, his telescope and a Church, elliptical not circular,
man makes wings to carry him to the sky, equal rights for all
no matter gender or color, the race for space, people on
the moon, now reusable rocket ships to colonize Mars, cars
that run on sunlight; adventurers hurling themselves off cliffs,
now hurling themselves from the edge of the atmosphere. Some
we admire with a small gold star; for some, we scroll on.

And the revelers and masqueraders, old as Bacchus,
young as Times Square, raving in caves or now dark
and empty industrial spaces, or high in glittering
enclaves of sophisticated drink, or down streets
in holiday, dressed, masked, and prepped to
participate in eleutheric ritual. We are them and
tell of fun but forget to delete in the morning.

And today as it was yesterday
bombs fell somewhere, shots fired;
death cults beckoned; madness of
men waving sticks of world-ending
fire. Unfortunately, nothing new to
see here. We still commiserate, falsely
soothed by light connection or moved
to take up causes.

The scene was Prussia, right before the war. No, it was
a party in North Africa during a truce. Or was it France
after the Liberation. Or was it the American South at
the start of the Civil War. Or was it last week that
the smart, elegant ladies gathered ‘round the very
charming, intelligent man in uniform, his rivals shooting
across the bow. Laughter and punch: the ingredients
change, as do styles of dress and sometimes
decorum. There are shy smiles and knowing
ones. Will they see we prized wit as well as warfare?

Here there are mythical seamonsters
which edify and terrorize their awed followers;
spies playing cat and mouse with same and with
foes playing dead now resurrected;
stories of children lost and children saved,
mixed with narratives of war and simple life,
calves birthed and named, stars lost and found,
galaxies singing in the not-so-empty dark.