Its evening when I finally decide to leap out of bed. After watching some videos on the net and reading an article or two, I make some coffee and finally get my ass in gear. I leave first for the grocery store just down the street before they close to buy some body wash and a bag of burritos. When I bring my stuff up the register, the old lady there greets me, scans it and tells me what I owe. In response, I slide my card and press Debit. It asks for my four-digit code.
Terror fills me. I just freeze. My mind goes blank. Try as I might, the information is — poof! — just fucking gone.
After less than a minute, I give up and press Cancel. She hears the machine make a weird noise and directs all attention to it. I nervously explain to the cashier I meant to press Credit instead and she brushes it off like its no big deal, but I feel like I’ve yet again made a total jackass out of myself. On the way to the car, on the drive towards Circle K, on the drive back home I’m constantly trying to conjure it. What are those four numbers? What are they? Where are they? By the time I make it to my apartment door, I’m fairly certain I remember, but that does little to diffuse my concern and curiosity.
After all, this has happened before. Many times over the years, in fact. Not always with numbers, either, but the names of people I know damn well just up an vanish into the goddamn ether. The information always returns, though typically long after I needed it. This has always led me to questioning why that information disappears. Back when I was younger, I just ignored it, depending upon some idiot idea I cradled that if you ignore it, it will just go away. Since I have come to fight against that inclination to go ostrich and stick my head in the ground, however, it has increasingly come to plague me. Is this a symptom of anxiety, or a dissociative disorder, or does this shit happen to everyone and its just that no one talks about it?
I fear its just one more suggestion that I’m bat-shit insane.
Transmissions to Earth 