Did You Try Turning It Off and On Again?

Writing Prompt

"The Computer screeched and the screen turned blue when he hit the submit button."



"Day 3 for the new computer technician"



         The computer screeches and the screen turns blue as he hits the submit button.

         "Shit, shit, shit," he hisses, and frantically presses ctrl+alt+del, snagging a good few extra keys along the way in his haste.

         A voice makes him startle and he looks up at the head that is staring down at him from the other side of the cubicle divider.

         "So did you get my file open?" the business man asks. He is gruff, bald and wears horn-rimmed glasses, which do not diminish his intimidating aura.

         "Uhh, yeah," John the new computer technician blurts. "It, uh, I'm just restarting. Outlook was lagging, sure."

         The gruff business man sighs and runs his hand over his trimmed facial hair, grimacing. "Got that presentation on Friday, it's gonna be an eighty thousand dollar contract," he reminds John the new computer technician for the third time that afternoon.

         "Yep, you got it, sir!" John says with bravado. The man scowls in response and heads off toward the office kitchen. John lets out a quick sigh of relief, mutters 'shit' under his breath a few more times, and opened up the mandatory Internet Explorer browser on his own laptop. Bing pops up and he angrily throws up his hands then transfers onto Google, his heart racing. His palms are sweating. He hastily looks up some computer nonsense and has opened a promising Yahoo!-answers when ominous creaking footsteps approach behind him.

         Jesus, he thinks, give me five minutes!

         "Ah, Paul!" intimidating business man greetes a coworker. John privately thanks Jesus for one fifth of a second then squints at the answer and surreptitiously opens a recommended link.

         '404 Error: Gateway Not Found'

         "Shit..."

         "How's it going, Ted?" Paul replies and stops to chat with three stacked boxes of printing paper in his arms.

         "Ah, you know, making corporate profit in ethically ambiguous ways," Ted says contentedly. "Well, as soon as technical guy saves the day. Funny to think I'd be lost without Tommy here!" He claps a hand onto John's shoulder so hard the swivel chair swings round.

         "IT, eh?" Paul grunts. "Would you come look at my computer afterwards? It's acting pretty funny. At my house, you know."

         John sticks his foot out and tries to swing himself back toward the desk. It isn't graceful.

         "Uh, I dunno, bring it in," he offered. Screw free house-calls, he thinks savagely.

         "Oh, great!" said Paul. "If you'd dropped by I would've given you something for it, but that works out great! See you, Ted."

Paul walks away leaving John to feel alone and empty.

But there's no time to despair, and Ted says, "So what's the prognosis?"

         John watches the computer chug back to life. Black screen with white text appears. John is depressed that he is happy about this. He types code-looking nonsense text as fast as he can to look like a pro.

         "That looks horrendous!" Ted exclaims.

         "No, sir, it's just a little confused," John projects his feelings onto the inanimate electronic. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Ted glance in the opposite direction. He throws caution to the wind, deletes all of his text, then presses Enter. System automatically repairs and is back up in under two minutes.

         John is depressed that he is horrified about this.

         "Oh, well done!" says Ted with another shoulder clap.

         "Thanks, yeah," he says sheepishly. "But do you have any idea what's the size of the file for your project?"

         "I dunno, it'd be over a hundred pages plus some animated stuff for the powerpoint," Ted tells him.

         "Right, okay," John says. He clears his throat. Cold beads of sweat begin to ooze under his hairline.

         "Do you want to use the spare private office?" Ted asks. Surprised at this act of charity John accepts ad brings all his things into a proper office, which has got the most amazing feature an employee could get: no not enormous touch-screen monitors, and no not a view to the gorgeous secretary, but a computer screen facing away from the door.          

         John knows he can't waste time despite the exciting temptation (he could totally hide a Minecraft file in there). John desperately searches through the Ted's system but it's no use and at this point he is hoping for the sake of hoping. Hope can be a powerful thing, either illusionary or motivating, but the more he tries the more he sees the bleak realism of the situation; the admittedly predictable realism of a guy whose parents worked as city parking ticket issuer and poultry kill room attendant.

         But even a realist can spot a solution to a problem.

         A problem for which he might solely be responsible.

         But only his conscience has to find out, right?

         Hope and optimism fail him yet again.

         John seizes his chance and gets out his own external back-up drive. He chucks every file and program into it. At the same time he internet-sprints to a blocked website. Teenage years of overriding blocked websites made this a cinch for John the new computer technician and he gets in. He downloads the most fast acting and lethal virus he can find.

         Pretty terrible things start happening to Ted's computer.

         John clears his throat and readies himself for his acting debut. Ted can be spotted coming down the long corridor. John gets up, back-up drive in hand, and swaggers over to the door. He leans on the door frame and makes a show of wiping the sweat from his brow. Before Ted can speak he says seriously,

         "Well, the thing is fried but I got the essentials for you just in time."

         He raises the drive, making sure to look like a grim survivor.

         "Fried? Like in oil?" Ted says menacingly. John's shoulder misses the doorframe this time and he stumbles out of it. "Give me real terminology, you useless twit." He marches into the office and takes one glance at the screen. He reacts by throwing up his arms and letting out a slew of curses. John lurks by the door and avoids the stares of people peeking out over their cubicles.

         "Sir, I've got everything," he bravely insists.

         Ted pauses in his rampage. He takes a deep breath and stomps over. John quakes in his loafers, certain that Ted is going to almost kill him, judging by the expression on his face. Yet Ted simply puts his hand on John's shoulder again.

"And I just said, I'd be lost without you, kid," he says gratefully.

         "No worries," John attempts to smile.

         "I'll talk to the main man about a bonus for this week, eh," Ted nods.

         "Oh, I couldn't accept that," John says automatically. Too bad it comes out as modesty.

         "Seriously, I mean it," Ted insists, and gives John a quick jerk of a hug. "Did you save my Friday presentation?"

         John goes pale and clears his throat. "Not really...it was such a big file it didn't have time to process. It didn't make it. I'm sorry."

         "Oh...yes. I see." Ted inhales loudly. John flinches. "Well, thank god..."

         John gets suspicious of this response. "Sir?"

         Ted looks up then shrugs thoughtfully. "It's an attachment in my email anyway."







*This is my first attempt at a quick shot at a prompt put on today's homepage.*