Institute For The Future

A Short Vision of the Future by Cory Doctorow

By His Things Will You Know Him

by Cory Doctorow for the Institute for the Future

A funeral becomes an occasion for a son to understand his father’s life through the clutter he leaves behind, with help from a new technology to add digital meaning to physical stuff.

I thought that Mr. Purnell was a little young to be a funeral director, but he had the look down cold. In the instant between his warm, dry handshake and my taking my hand back to remove my winter hat and stuff it into my pocket, he assumed the look, a kind of concerned, knowing sympathy that suggested he’d weathered plenty of grief in his day and he was there to help you get through your own. He gestured me onto an oatmeal-colored wool sofa and pulled his wheeled office chair around to face me. I hung my coat over the sofa arm and sat down and crossed and uncrossed my legs. Read the whole story ...