Wisdom of the Ancients

A possible future in less than 500 words, if plastic wins.

This was my entry for the WattPad/National Geographic #PlanetOrPlastic competition back in late 2018. It reached their Top 10 Submissions which, given that there appeared to be well over 5000 entries, was a very pleasant surprise! The competition itself had a limit of 500 words so, for those who keep asking if I intend continuing the story, the answer (for now!) is no - unless I can find a very good reason for adding any more.

Many thanks to everyone reading and voting on this story and getting it to number 1 in the #sciencefiction category in May/June 2020! I did try to thank the voters individually on their pages but Wattpad have a daily limit on the number of times I'm allowed to do that and there are now too many of you (not that I'm complaining)!

Here's the top 10 submissions page: https://www.wattpad.com/list/738243473-planetorplastic-top-10-submissions

If you want to read the story in Polish please head over to https://www.wattpad.com/story/236405960-m%C4%85dro%C5%9B%C4%87-staro%C5%BCytnych-t%C5%82umaczenie-pl where @juliatlumaczy has done a fine job - thank you, Julia!

@juliatlumaczy has now sent me a version of the cover she used for her Polish translation - thanks again, Julia!

@alex_sokolova has also translated the story into Russian as well. You can read that here: https://www.wattpad.com/976002417-мудрость-древних - many thanks, Alex!

We now have a third translation! @AlfonsoLucassen has kindly translated it into Spanish and you can find it here: https://www.wattpad.com/1063634347-la-sabidur%C3%ADa-de-los-antiguos