Prompt: Write a cyberpunk, near-future story narrated by a half-computer, half-human who is still in school. His lessons at the moment are focused on when and how to choose emotion over logic. Every day he goes out into the world to practice what he has learned. In your story, have him make some funny errors. It’s up to you whether he “gets” the humor or not.
As an extra challenge, use these words in your story: “gush”, “blush”, “crush”.
Silicon and Sinew – RUSS-L’s Weblog for Better Android Living
Entry #74 – NOSFA Cheesemonger Update #3
April 6th, 2127
My Dunhamian winter has given way to Davidian spring. I am Costanza incarnate and will always be. I believed myself a sort of male Android Jessa Johansson, perhaps with a Krameric streak, but interaction #3 with the Cheesemonger named D-LYLA from Natural Organo-Synthetic Food Arcade has revealed me as no more than an archetypical neurotic. It is a testament to the strength of my neuroses that I am so neurotic given the relatively minor inlay that any actual neurons in the techno-cerebral cortex which makes up this consciousness under which I exist.
I made the mistake of printing and then consulting the readout from the interaction, which of course reflected that the Linux part of my brain ran code intended to send a completely sensible statement updating D-LYLA, upon whom seasoned readers will understand I harbor a particularly sincere crush, on my enjoyment of the Camembert+ she recommended to me. Actually, I’ll just include it here. No point summarizing what my awful organic neurons elected to override before it got down the stem-
You told me the difference between the Camembert+ from the Hyundai-Crockpot-Gbajabiamila Family Dair-E in Green Bay and the Camembert+ from the GENEROCORP-GLOBOCHEM LABS Family Dair-E in The City of La Crosse Presented by Ally Bank, as well as of course all other Camemberts from normal dairies across the great state of K-SWis(s)consin, was in the dermalabial-resonance – and I agree, that really was key to the flavor profile experience. I had paired it with little toasts and an AE-Riesling from a Winer-E named Studdard Wines, which had only just added in the technical equipment required to infuse their wines with flavors specially compatible with the enhanced taste-bud capacities you and I as Androids possess.
It is a truly delightful pairing, the Studdard AE-Riesling and the HCG Camembert+, as the relative naivete inherent to Studdard Wines’ first entry into the Android-Enhanced Wine scene perhaps led them to lean heavily on the capacity for Epiglottal SubFlavoring. I heard the patriarch of Studdard Wines was an award-winning troubadour in the early 21st-century, even, and I believe that artistic background can be tasted in the Studdard AE-Riesling. I would be delighted to share you the coordinates of its listing on the AE-Wine App if you would share with me your Nintendo Craniomessenger App Friend Code?
STRING OVERRIDE ENACTED BY NEURONAL THRUST AT BIO-SYNTHETIC CONFLUENCE
Those neurons, which so braizenly overpowered a well-crafted, intelligently-designed phrase that would have easily rolled off of my human tongue, which would have earnestly flattered her sensibilities and skills as a cheesemonger and offered her a point of contact based around an accessible third-party touchstone, decided it was instead ideal to stare at the bra strap peeking out, accidentally I assume, from behind the collar of her store-issued polo shirt and state “I think that today I would like to buy more of your cheese, miss.” Of course I stuttered on “Miss” as well, for your reference. I never broke my eyes away from the strap.
She definitely noticed, as when I finally got myself to look away, I could see her blushing.
I know, readers, and I expect that you know as well, that blushing is a reaction that her Linux systems could have stopped from occurring if it were paramount for blushing not to take place in the situation. I would think a blush of absolute humiliated embarrassment, like one that she would not have wanted a relative stranger like me to see, would not have made it past the bio-synthetic confluence, so this either signaled genuine bashfulness or potentially was intended to give her the high ground for a manipulative guilt-tripping opportunity. I lean towards the former, partially because I want to lean towards the former, also because the manipulative exigence truly caps at ‘more cheese sold’ to a man whose entire interfacing efforts with her has involved the sale of cheese to this point. I highly doubt that she works on commission, though. I don’t think it truly matters how much cheese she sells as long as she sells like a base-line of cheese. Maybe (and I find this hard to believe) she could have tried to guilt-trip me into feeling bad enough about staring at the bra-strap to ask her out on a date to make up for it? She does not know me well enough to know whether or not guilt-tripping would actually work for this purpose, though, so I have to imagine the blush was allowed because it reflected genuine bashfulness. So not all hope is lost.
She then asked me about the Camembert+, I stumbled over a statement of gratitude for her recommendation and of course forgot the name of the wine and the winery and the crooner for whom it’s named. She asked me if I wanted more of it, and I ended up getting more of it. She ended with what felt to my human parts like a genuine smile and an ‘enjoy!’
I know that I have this blog linked on my public Craniomessenger Friend Card and that, if she wanted to see it, would be able to get a printout of the Public Friend Cards of all of the people that she’d interacted with during the course of a given day, so there is a possibility that she’s read the WfBAL and thus my posts about her and thus this post. If that is the case, then, D-LYLA, please pretend that I only said that little excerpt part from earlier and did no staring or stumbling. Or at least imagine what it would have been like if I’d only said that and then… I don’t know, if you’re as nervous as I am, ask me about the Studdard Winery next time and I will take that as a code to understand that you’ve read this.
Of all of the great literary archetypes that predated were archived to Digital Versatile Discs in advance of the Great Internet Dessication of 2051, (for kids who fell asleep during Post-Millennial History Class, that was the official name of the event in which a solar flare destroyed the entire original World Wide Web and all memory on devices connected to is, thus leaving us only with what remained on optical or magnetic formats as much of the culture from the early 21st-century became lost), I pick Costanza to describe my situation because he represents hope for me – He stumbled over his words many a time and still many a time wooed beautiful women in the New York City of the 1990s. It is funny to imagine it now, given how much of that city is covered in The Slime, but his trials make me believe that I still have a shot with the Cheesemonger.
Joe Bush dot Net 