The discovery of a toothbrush at Heliopoli site prompted the following uplink from excavator Marta Simmons:

“On a recent visit to the dentist, I was given, as a parting gift, a marital aid to brush my teeth with.

“Well, it wasn’t a marital aid as such, but it looked like one. It bristled in all directions, like an angry porcupine. It had different kinds of bristles, too, and in different colors. The handle was as curved and angled as a Frank Gehry building.

“It was a toothbrush. At least, that’s what it was supposed to be. It was actually a highly evolved form of toothbrush. Surely it would tear my gums apart. Surely it required an owner’s manual.

“The drive to produce products that are ‘new and improved’ has created a natural selection process in design. Remember the Reach toothbrush? It had an angled handle. Cool. Why didn’t someone think of it before? It worked. Design served function.

But the great-grandchildren of the Reach, after generations of inbreeding, have produced a monstrosity that one is loathe to put in one’s mouth. Like Philip K. Dick’s Ubik, products evolve.

The drive for ‘new and improved’ has lead to a parade of toothbrush designs through the years. Is there a final, perfect form for a toothbrush? Is there a Platonic ideal? Does it look like what I was handed in the dentist’s office? Or will toothbrushes evolve again?

“Lord knows what real marital aids will look like in a couple of years.”

(The chief archivist notes that in Heliopoli the designers did not take into consideration such mundane items as toothbrushes when making guesses about the design of the future. He notes this as a general flaw. The toothbrush found at Heliopoli site is contemporary with the construction of the city. It has a straight handle, straight bristles and the pointy rubber thing at one end. Or were the designers of Heliopoli satisfied that this was, indeed, the endpoint for toothbrush design, that it had reached its Platonic ideal, until the Reach broke the paradigm? Regardless, for all its high-flown superstructures, horizon-spanning plazas, glass expanses, and speedy pedways, Heliopoli ignored the humble toothbrush.)