[原创] The Memory Box
Posted: 2005-11-30 15:23
The Memory Box
The rain had turned into a drizzle by nine o’clock. The puddles of water glistened on the sidewalk pavement, reflecting the pale light from the street lamps. Jim pulled up the collar of his old coat against the damp November wind and hastened his steps. He was in his mid-forties, medium height, wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses. He was not particularly fat, not more so than any middle-aged man with a bulging belly, but the skin and flesh on every part of his body sagged under gravity like a day-old balloon.
The residual warmth from the greasy burger, soggy fries, and cheap beer in his stomach was quickly dissipating. He turned around the street corner into a narrow back street, almost tripping over an empty soda can. A pawnshop and a pizza parlor he passed were both dark inside with the “Closed” sign facing out. The rows of dirty brick houses that lined the street seemed to be on the verge of collapse. Jim stopped in front of a store with a flickering neon sign, “Ray’s Memory Box,” which was missing a couple of letters. He pressed the icy door handle with the familiarity of a blind man in his own home, and entered through the wooden door with peeling paint.
The inside of the store was almost darker than the streets outside. A lamp with a dirty orange shade huddled in a corner of the wobbly reception desk. Behind the desk, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf barely held together against the wall. Piles of papers, binders, boxes, and CDs spilled out of the shelf and onto the floor. A scrawny little man with spiky gray hair looked up at Jim. His skin was covered with wrinkles upon wrinkles. Despite the shriveled face and stature, his agile movement and shifty eyes suggested that he was not as old as he looked. Joey had run the store for as long as Jim had been coming here. His voice was hoarse from chain smoking:
“Hey, Jimbo! What’s up?”
Jim took off his spectacles and wiped them with a corner of his shirt, then put them back on. He reached into his pant pocket and placed a fistful of crumbled dirty bills on the counter. “Hey, Joey. Got any new inventory?” He asked.
Joey’s eyes behind the small cracks of lids glanced at the money and returned to Jim’s face. “Sure,” he swirled his chair around and fished out a few disks from the piles on the floor behind him.
“Payday, isn’t it?” Joey said, “Take it easy, Jim. You’ve been here almost every day this month. Don’t forget to put some dough aside for the child-support check.”
“That blood-sucking bitch has already got her check this month.” Jim slammed his fist on the counter and spit. “Half of my paycheck every month and it can’t even buy a Thanksgiving holiday with my own boy.”
Joey shook his head with pity. “Tough break, buddy.” In the past three years, Jim had only let slip a few one-liners about his bitter divorce despite Joey’s frequent prying. Joey had never heard him referring to his ex-wife by any name other than “the bitch.” From the toys he had seen Jim buy for his son, he figured the kid was about eleven or twelve years old. Jim never talked about his life beyond two sentences. Tonight, he again waved away any further discussion on the topic of his ex-wife and fingered the collection on the counter, his eyes burning with hunger.
“What’s this one?” He picked up one disk and held it close to his nose, straining to read the label. “The Caribbean Fling,” then another, “Naughty Friday. Hmm… Sounds racy.”
“Here’s a great one --- A Victorian Proposal. It’s underground, made by Mnemosyne. Remember Mnemosyne?” Joey handed him a disk with a photocopied cover on which one could barely discern the shape of a woman in 19th century costumes.
“I thought she retired.” Jim examined the pirated “blip” copy with curiosity. Blip was short for “brain clip.” The original intention for the technology was to copy and save, and possibly transfer, a small amount of knowledge stored in a person’s brain for potential medical uses in people with Alzheimer’s disease and mental retardation. Soon it became a tool for accelerating children’s learning and schooling. When the price of the technology came down, it was computer gamers who first began to make blips for recreation and exchange them on black markets. The big companies were too slow to catch the trend. The deep-rooted culture of underground production and distribution had not been purged so far by corporations and their copyright big sticks.
Mnemosyne was one of the gurus with a large cult following. The sources of her blips were the subject of much speculation. When early blip-creators paid anyone off the street for raw memory recordings of cheap thrills or basic bodily pleasures, Mnemosyne hand-picked both the “runners”
The rain had turned into a drizzle by nine o’clock. The puddles of water glistened on the sidewalk pavement, reflecting the pale light from the street lamps. Jim pulled up the collar of his old coat against the damp November wind and hastened his steps. He was in his mid-forties, medium height, wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses. He was not particularly fat, not more so than any middle-aged man with a bulging belly, but the skin and flesh on every part of his body sagged under gravity like a day-old balloon.
The residual warmth from the greasy burger, soggy fries, and cheap beer in his stomach was quickly dissipating. He turned around the street corner into a narrow back street, almost tripping over an empty soda can. A pawnshop and a pizza parlor he passed were both dark inside with the “Closed” sign facing out. The rows of dirty brick houses that lined the street seemed to be on the verge of collapse. Jim stopped in front of a store with a flickering neon sign, “Ray’s Memory Box,” which was missing a couple of letters. He pressed the icy door handle with the familiarity of a blind man in his own home, and entered through the wooden door with peeling paint.
The inside of the store was almost darker than the streets outside. A lamp with a dirty orange shade huddled in a corner of the wobbly reception desk. Behind the desk, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf barely held together against the wall. Piles of papers, binders, boxes, and CDs spilled out of the shelf and onto the floor. A scrawny little man with spiky gray hair looked up at Jim. His skin was covered with wrinkles upon wrinkles. Despite the shriveled face and stature, his agile movement and shifty eyes suggested that he was not as old as he looked. Joey had run the store for as long as Jim had been coming here. His voice was hoarse from chain smoking:
“Hey, Jimbo! What’s up?”
Jim took off his spectacles and wiped them with a corner of his shirt, then put them back on. He reached into his pant pocket and placed a fistful of crumbled dirty bills on the counter. “Hey, Joey. Got any new inventory?” He asked.
Joey’s eyes behind the small cracks of lids glanced at the money and returned to Jim’s face. “Sure,” he swirled his chair around and fished out a few disks from the piles on the floor behind him.
“Payday, isn’t it?” Joey said, “Take it easy, Jim. You’ve been here almost every day this month. Don’t forget to put some dough aside for the child-support check.”
“That blood-sucking bitch has already got her check this month.” Jim slammed his fist on the counter and spit. “Half of my paycheck every month and it can’t even buy a Thanksgiving holiday with my own boy.”
Joey shook his head with pity. “Tough break, buddy.” In the past three years, Jim had only let slip a few one-liners about his bitter divorce despite Joey’s frequent prying. Joey had never heard him referring to his ex-wife by any name other than “the bitch.” From the toys he had seen Jim buy for his son, he figured the kid was about eleven or twelve years old. Jim never talked about his life beyond two sentences. Tonight, he again waved away any further discussion on the topic of his ex-wife and fingered the collection on the counter, his eyes burning with hunger.
“What’s this one?” He picked up one disk and held it close to his nose, straining to read the label. “The Caribbean Fling,” then another, “Naughty Friday. Hmm… Sounds racy.”
“Here’s a great one --- A Victorian Proposal. It’s underground, made by Mnemosyne. Remember Mnemosyne?” Joey handed him a disk with a photocopied cover on which one could barely discern the shape of a woman in 19th century costumes.
“I thought she retired.” Jim examined the pirated “blip” copy with curiosity. Blip was short for “brain clip.” The original intention for the technology was to copy and save, and possibly transfer, a small amount of knowledge stored in a person’s brain for potential medical uses in people with Alzheimer’s disease and mental retardation. Soon it became a tool for accelerating children’s learning and schooling. When the price of the technology came down, it was computer gamers who first began to make blips for recreation and exchange them on black markets. The big companies were too slow to catch the trend. The deep-rooted culture of underground production and distribution had not been purged so far by corporations and their copyright big sticks.
Mnemosyne was one of the gurus with a large cult following. The sources of her blips were the subject of much speculation. When early blip-creators paid anyone off the street for raw memory recordings of cheap thrills or basic bodily pleasures, Mnemosyne hand-picked both the “runners”
haven't quite finished reading yet. 
不能这样侮辱蓝莲花吧？ 
