Losing my memory (standard:science fiction, 1671 words)
Author: E.A. Wicklund	Added: Oct 28 2007	Views/Reads: 3460/2212	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
An amusing account of looking for a lost memory chip, and finding something else instead.

I needed to know when the dreaded corporate meeting would start. You
know the kind. A bunch of self-centered muckety-mucks gathering around 
a table to discuss the company's latest problem. This always results in 
a pattern of "blame-storming" until some poor sap with the least 
influence and the least to do with the problem gets all the blame. The 
satisfied attendees will adjourn while the problem remains on the table 
like a glop of cancerous puss. Uncleaned. Unresolved. Still there. 

Thinking about painful farce to come, I stuck my finger in my ear and
pulled on my lower lip while balancing on my right leg. This wasn't 
self-abuse to distract me from the coming pain of the meeting. I was 
rebooting my memory chip. It wasn't working properly. I prodded around 
just behind my ear. That explained it. The chip wasn't in. 

It wasn't on the little table by the door, on the dresser, or on the
microwave. If I only had my memory chip handy I would've known where it 
was. I needed what I already lost to in order to find what I had lost! 
What ever happened to clappers? I felt again at the slots at the base 
of my skull. Still forlornly empty. I  kept hunting. 

Socks, underwear, old restaurant receipts, and tattered coupons for free
travel flew about the room as I whirled through my cushy, upscale 
apartment. All the drawers hung open. Various items of clothing and 
remnants of documents drooped over the edges of over-turned furniture. 
It had to be somewhere! I mean I last had it...can't remember. That was 
on the chip. 

I checked my watch. The company meeting was coming up soon. But I still
didn't know the start time. That made me think about my calendar. So I 
stuck my right thumb in my mouth and pulled at the skin of my right eye 
with my left pinkie finger. This is what I had to do to access the 
files on my memory chip. The action brought up a visual overlay on my 
retina ( that means I could see it but no one else could ). That 
provided a file listing that I could point to and select with my left 
index finger, in the air,  but only while grabbing my left butt-cheek 
with my right hand. Of course, the visual never came up 
because...ah...gimme a sec...oh yeah, because the flipping memory chip 
was still missing! 

Sounds stupid, eh? Let me tell you it was typical. This is the way it
was when implantable chips first started out. The only command protocol 
that worked reliably was Kinesthetic-Usage for Retrievable Systems 
Erudition ( KURSE ). You see at the time, no one completely understood 
the way people and machines worked together. Thinking a certain thing 
or moving certain way could always be relied upon to fire neurons a 
certain way. The memory chips took advantage of that. But to be sure 
you didn't accidently fire a command sequence while sipping your 
Starbucks coffee, you had to do something unusual. And that's why I 
went through all the crazy motions. Nobody would dream of doing such 
things in ordinary behavior. And that's why the KURSE protocol worked. 

My KURSE protocol wasn't doing diddly for me just now, so I grabbed my
coat and left the apartment. There was an outside chance I left the 
chip at the coffee shop. Why would I take out the chip there, you ask? 
That first jolt of caffeine in the morning really fires off a chaotic 
string of neural impulses. Sometimes they just happen to match the 
control impulses for your chip. You could easily wipe the whole thing 
if you weren't careful. 

So I trudged down the sidewalk heading for my favorite coffee shop. It
was right over...no. Hold on a sec. It was down this block...no. It 
was...well, frack! The address was on the stupid memory chip! I was 
going to be late for the meeting and I didn't know when. Come to think 
of it I didn't even know what the fricking meeting was about! Well, I 
had to do something. So I just started walking. 

I passed a young woman standing by a taxi cab. She had her pump heel in
her left hand and was pulling her hair so that her head flopped 
backward. A couple of old ladies were passing her and they commented on 
how goofy she looked. Rubes! I snorted. The young woman was obviously 
taking an international call on her implanted phone. Those old ladies 
had no idea how silly they sounded! 

I continued my walk, having no idea what else to do. Without my chip I
had no structure. The constant dings and bells of schedule reminders 


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