A sketch by Jean-Pierre Martinez
One character is there. A second one arrives.
One – Do you think people will remember us after we die?
Two – You mean… the people who knew us when we were alive? Family, friends…?
One – No, I mean… after. When all the people who knew us are also dead.
Two – I see… Will we pass into posterity?
One – Why not?
Two – We’d have to do something truly significant, right?
One – Let’s say we did.
Two – Alright… Like saving the free world, as Winston Churchill did.
One – Churchill isn’t that distant in memory. There are still people who knew him personally… There’s no guarantee that in a hundred years…
Two – Okay… So we’re talking more about staying forever in the collective memory.
One – What does it take to achieve immortality, do you think?
Two – Exterminate millions of people, like Hitler or Pol Pot?
One – Let’s aim for leaving a positive legacy instead.
Two – Discovering America, like Christopher Columbus…?
One – Maybe, though Native Americans might not share the same sentiment. But true, it’s been five hundred years and we still remember it.
Two – Founding a religion, like Jesus Christ…
One – That was two thousand years ago.
Two – And we’re likely to remember it for a long time.
One – Indeed, some figures have been remembered even longer.
Two – Yeah…
One – Do you know who the oldest human being we still remember is?
Two – Lucy?
One – Lucy is just a bunch of bones. The skeleton isn’t even complete. We hardly know anything about her.
Two – We know she was a woman.
One – That’s a thin basis for posterity. Especially since she probably wasn’t called Lucy when she was alive.
Two – Well… Who then?
One – Pharaoh Narmer. He lived five thousand years ago. He’s the oldest historical figure we still remember today, for unifying Upper and Lower Egypt.
Two – I don’t remember him.
One – Egyptologists do.
Two – And when there are no more Egyptologists?
One – There will always be Egyptologists, right?
Two – Always, you think? What about when Earth is destroyed by human madness?
One – Maybe there’ll still be a few Egyptologists among the survivors.
Two – And when the Sun absorbs the Earth in five billion years?
One – By then, perhaps humans will have colonised another planet.
Two – Taking an Egyptologist with them? I’m not sure they’ll be the first to be saved…
One – It will still be in the books of Egyptology.
Two – And when the universe self-destructs, in the big crunch or the big freeze, depending on which theory holds at that time?
One – Yeah… At that point, no one will be left to remember us, that’s for sure.
Two – Yet many people have already forgotten us, and we’re not even dead.
One – You’re right… What’s the point of bothering to try to do something significant to achieve immortality? If in the long term, we’re all doomed to be forgotten.
Pause.
Two – Let’s have another drink to forget this sad reality…
Fade to black.
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A sketch from the collection Enough is enough!
Link to the collection for free download (PDF)
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https://jeanpierremartinez.net