Legacy

the interviewer asked what do you want your legacy to be

i came from language and to language i shall return

what more could i should i possibly expect

what legacy have i inherited from my ancestors from homo erectus i inherited the ability to walk upright from homo ergaster i inherited the knowledge of taming fire

what sort of collective legacy will our current incarnation hand down to future generations a million years from now or even a mere ten thousand many can’t imagine how the human race is going to survive the next one hundred

put simply i hope to give back more than i have taken but 1’m worried this is impossible without a radical shift in my consumer behavior

wouldn’t it be nice if after my eventual assassination someone erected a statue in my honor not too tall ten feet would suffice but the statue should be a robot or golem of some sort the automaton would lumber around the city fixing potholes and rescuing cats stuck in trees perhaps the automaton would start a book club

or maybe the mayor could erect a hundred-foot-tall statue of me carved entirely out of soap my legacy would melt at the first real downpour cleansing the streets delicate bubbles rising to the heavens for a passing child’s delight

in the untamable unnamable future

i merely wish as most folks do for history’s severe lens to cast me in a brighter light than the shadows with which i associate myself