Thursday, January 7, 2021

Microstory 1534: Found and Lost

I can never find anything in this ________ house. I swear, I’m not a ________, I just cannot get organized. I can spend ________ on the hunt for one ________ thing, and there have been some things that I still haven’t ________, even after years. I’m not talking about common ________, like my chapstick or wallet. I use those every day, and I always ________ them in the same ________. I’m talking about that little metal key thing you use to access the ________ card or external ________ on your phone. I only need it every two ________, and that’s plenty of time to forget where I placed it. And when I finally do ________ what I’m looking for, I always recall that I put it there for some ________ reason. Yeah, I thought I was pretty clever, ________ all the thumbtacks with the nails. But ________ go out in the garage, and ________ are an indoor ________ . The fact that they’re both ________ isn’t all that relevant. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been through this ________, flipping through my stack of tax forms and middle school report cards, or opening every ________ in my desk twice. You would think I would have the layout memorized by now, but I’m only ever looking for one thing, and even if I saw it the last time, when I was looking for something else, it’s not like I’ll remember. But I should, because I have to do it so ________. And what’s happened today doesn’t make any ________. This is what you might call a junk ________, but it’s actually pretty clean and ________. It’s the most organized area I have. There’s a divider for rubber ________, and one for ________, and another for ________. If I’m ever looking for ________, that’s one of the few things I actually can always find. It’s the first ________ I open when I’m looking for something that’s not normally in it, though.

Today, I can’t remember where I ________ my social security ________. I need it to apply to this airport thing, and apparently memorizing the number itself isn’t ________ enough. Which is dumb. What’s the difference between ________ the number, and showing a piece of ________ with the number on it? That’s all that’s on there. I could probably forge one myself, even though I’m no ________, nor exceptionally good at computers. Anyway, that’s not the point. There’s something in my organized ________ drawer that doesn’t belong. I have never seen it ________. It’s a golden flash drive that claims to have five petabytes stored on it. Like I said, I’m no computer ________, but even I know how insane that is. I look it up online; that’s five thousand times larger than the ____est flash drive the public has access to. Obviously I have to figure out what’s on it. Someone ________ into my house, didn’t take anything I can see, but left something that shouldn’t even ________. I’m not certain it ever could exist, even in the ________, not in something so small. I’m worried it’s a ________ that will destroy the ________, though, so I spend the next ________ looking for my old ________. I mean, this ________ is ancient. It still boots up, but the ________ I’m not using my ________ computer is because I don’t want there to be any ________ of connecting to the ________. This thing was manufactured before wireless ________ was even a thing, I think, probably. I stick the mysterious ________ ________ into the USB ________, and wait for it to ________. It begins to glow, and quickly becomes too hot to touch, so I can’t take it out, and shutting the ________ doesn’t matter, because it’s so old that it can’t detect whether it’s open or ________. The screen will stay on unless you turn it off ________, which isn’t working either. After a ________, I’m getting really worried, but before I can make another ________, two beams of light shoot out of the flash ________, and hit me right in the eyes. Now I’m ________ in a trance, unable to move a muscle. I can feel myself being ________ into the device, little by little. Then the darkness. I don’t know how long it takes me to ________ up again, but it takes me awhile to get my bearings. I realize that I’m in the computer, and I’m able to access everything still ________ on it, like the letter I wrote to the boy I had a crush on in ________ grade that I was always too scared to print off and ________ to him. I can’t actually do anything here, though, because like I said, this ________ is too old. Now I’m regretting it, because if I had an internet connection, I could have at least called for ________.

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