“When we open the cash register, we will be 208 years old,” calculated a child from this Lille outdoor center, a fluorescent pinafore on his back. Around a large square steel box, called a “time capsule”, his friends gather. Dozens of kraft envelopes, printed greeting cards sealed with ribbon, children’s photos and drawings… long letters and small words piled up there were intended for the people of Lille in… 2225.
It was “to make students write” that a teacher from a school in the city dreamed of, this project was realized in reality thanks to participatory budgeting. “Dear humanity,” we read at the beginning of one letter. The full contents, however, are kept secret, to preserve the first information… for our distant descendants.
“What will life be like in the next two hundred years? Will there be flying cars or not? », asked the presenter with a smile. “It would be great, like now!” » Some latecomers look for pens and write their messages at the last minute, full of hope, humor or seriousness.
A valuable testimony in our time
Under the supervision of a small group of residents, the capsule was closed with screws, then lowered by rope into a cavity excavated in the Place du Maréchal Leclerc in the northern capital, which is currently being rebuilt. These precious testimonies of our time will take a long journey through time, before being discovered. But they will not be forgotten: a gold plaque, installed when the work was completed, will remind future generations that “a time capsule is kept in this place, not to be opened until the summer of 2225”.
