The lost 32 GB

Suppose a man got a 32 GB flash drive when he upgraded his cell phone contract. He backed up all his documents and many of his photos onto it. He kept it apart from his computer, in his room, because he didn’t want to lose his data should anybody steal his computer. This was a wary man, because he had a lot of trouble after all his power tools had been stolen the year before.

And suppose that one day, when this man wanted to make backups, he just could not find that flash drive. He switched on the light, used his torch, looked in all likely and unlikely places, he searched very carefully. But he could not find it. He was very sad and just could not imagine where he might have placed it.

Finally he stopped searching and used DVD’s for his backups. He missed his 32 GB though. The flash drive was useful when he took photos to his friend’s place as well. So, when he saw the special on 8 GB drives, he got himself one. It was very handy, but also made him realise anew what a big loss he had suffered. He started searching all over again.

His father, who lived with him, asked what he was looking for. It was difficult to explain, so the man showed him the 8 GB drive that he had bought. “Oh, it looks like those little brushes that you use to clean electric razors with” said the father who was now searching even more than the man did. The father was constantly losing things, so he thought of himself as a specialist searcher. While the father went through everything in the man’s room, the man went to the father’s room though. And there, in the box where the father kept his electric razor he found his 32 GB.

The man called his friends and neighbours together and said “Rejoice with me, because I have found the 32 GB that I lost!” He was very glad. But he also thought a lot. About the ways one can lose memory. About the material Jesus used in his stories. And how a piece of plastic can be a large amount of space. Or a brush.

George