My mother would still like to know

what happened to the set
of yellow clip on bows
she bought for my hair
when I was about six. 



She put them in a safe place
ready to use
when I went to a birthday party later the same week
and thirty two years later they are still missing. 



Yet every now and again
she still wonders about them
and does this wistful gaze at my hair, and I know
she's imagining me wearing them now.



Taken from a post by user SarahandFuck on Mumsnet chat forum, July 2013. Submitted by Uschi Gatward.

What shall remain

Our civilization will be known for our diaper landfills
and our nuclear waste sites
Other fragments of our culture might survive as well:
bits of Tupperware
mountains of lithium batteries
or maybe the traces of our highway system.

The foundation of a skyscraper might make
for a breakthrough excavation
but the islands of plastic bottles
floating in the oceans may prove puzzling.

Perhaps we will bury a cache of digital archives somewhere
to be deciphered one day
like the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian sarcophagus.



From the Design Observer review of A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil McGregor. The review is written by Adam Harrison Levy. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.