My Neurogram Took a Trip
I look around my new surroundings as my pupils adjusted to the sudden change of lighting in this new room. Overhead, there’sLED lighting and some sort of background blue light. I had been in my own bedroom, before, with incandescent comfortable lighting, 40 watts. I had been catching up on some bed-time reading.
In the present, the pillows under my head are filled with buckwheat. My sheets and covers assembled with high thread count. The bedding where I lay, down-filled. Its lovely. I do remember a sound, an unusual sound for that room. I believe I heard a femtosecond LASER switching on and off with high frequency. VVVVVttttt, not whoooosh. Impossible, of course because I didn’t ablate haha, I mean, here I am. My environment seems different, and I feel funny. Change is exasperating and I don’t do change well. I slammed my hands down to my thighs as if that will adjust me back to how I had been a short while ago. My hands pass through my thighs like air. The new me is not solid mass. Shit.
About a hundred years after the original moon landing the plan to develop a small lunar settlement with working factories came to fruition. Most impressive was the fact that those planners, the powers that be, incorporated materials and devices needed to use the moon base to then emigrate to Mars, the red planet. So that is happening now, on Mars.
I know the difference between a hologram and a neurogram. Holograms, 3D-projected human movies can be useful for mechanics, and 3D tutorials for students.
The engineers on Mars immediately ran into obstacles and could not wait decades for help to arrive from the lunar staff. Simple holograms were not useful to them because they needed real-time thinking, where Q & A; was necessary. The needed neurograms.
A neurogram incorporates hologram, projected from a person’s mind along with details of their neurology. The technology uses a neuromagnetic resonance imaging or MRI to adjunct in an auxiliary manner. The body left behind stays in a hibernation while the projected image and cranial nerves keep firing with it. The twelve pairs of (CN) cranial nerves project electrical signals in real time. They are the olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial, vestibulocochlear, glossopharyngeal, vagus, accessory and hypoglossal nerves. The neurogram can hear and speak well enough with a digital voice.
The Mars team received immediate intelligent assistance from team moon without delay. As retired mid level hospital personnel, I am not needed on Mars, so why am I a neurogram right now? At least my body is safely bedded.
Another neurogram, not widely discussed, is prison visitation. Nonviolent offenders with short sentences are jettisoned, solo, on tiny ships in orbit. Being alone protects the prisoner during justice administration while inmate rehabilitation takes place.
However, severe isolation and loneliness was shown to be taking a toll against prisoner well-being. Visitation, not conjugal, using neurogram technology solved the problem. The prisoners complete a list of approved visitors for scheduled materialization to take place. I looked to my left and there he was. I must have been listed and someone hit the button by mistake. I never approved this. Never walked into a projection facility. So what’s going on?
Memory lane plays its part in the mind of a retired person. That’s me. Wishful thinking wants old wise me to fix the former fourteen-year-old me. I remember first seeing him. His name is Tomas and he was my Adonis. Scandinavian bones and muscles, green eyes and witty beyond belief. It was at a school musical where he played the trumpet, perfectly. The older girls whispered with glee.
I was a putz who had not lost her baby fat. My sebaceous glands gave me a shiny face and scalp by mid-day every day. I laughed loudly and at inappropriate times. I had not been guided by an elder to figure things out and did not even understand I should have been embarrassed. I also suffered very heavy menstruation with corresponding anxiety as well. When first I saw Tomas, all that vanished and I believed myself worthy. Ugg.
I grew pretty about two years later. Yes, grew. Not knowing how fat appears or vanishes from the body, I simply cut sugar and ate a little less just by guessing. I could see ribs and the rest of my body collaborated. However, my inner self suffered from arrested development. There had been a short termed puppy love, a boyfriend. We looked cute together and people may have assumed the relationship contained maturity. It did not.
The Adonis, Tomas, had lost his own love when her father’s career moved the family far away. Tomas looked toward me one day as I was laughing loudly. One thing led to another way beyond puppy love. I acted badly when he dropped me. I became a stalker chick. Embarrassing. Somehow, the neurogram machine caught my thoughts stored in my brain’s amygdala, the hippocampus.
Tomas, as a young man, had been a free spirit. As a genius, school was easy. As a smooth operator, most likely, he had a secret life back then and always.
Despite my previous stalking, I was no longer a broken heart as I was too busy putting out fires in my own life. As an elder I even had to look up the correct spelling of his last name. That had not been love, it had been pure obsession. Upon retiring, I sent him a message and salutations with well-wishing that were reciprocated to me from Tomas. It must have been about a year after that note that I found myself guiltily thinking of him once again. VVVVtttt. Shit
Tonight, this night, we talked. Me with my funny electronic neurogram voice and Tomas as himself, his honest, imprisoned person. It was nice to talk. There were no teen hormones, no bullshit just honesty. My former Adonis said he enjoyed my sense of humor and always had. I’m glad. The safety timer rang a warning bell. We say good-bye, good luck. VVVVtttt.
Julie Iverson
As a medical technician working in ophthalmics, ancillary success happened for Julie Iverson as a writer of continuing education. An accolade of first place came from a novel experiment for the contact lens industry and award-winning APA white paper. She won.