Worthless and Weak

Garrett woke up, he sat at his computer, the same one he's had since the day before he went to college. He changed a few things about it, a new hard drive, a new dvd drive, but for the most part, the same computer.

He checked his e-mail, to see if that girl responded to him. She did. But not exactly what he wanted to hear. He hesitated in writing back.

Breakfast, shower, etc.

It was hot. Over 90, with humidity.

Garrett walked downstairs, opened the door, and lifted his bike out of the bottom of the stairwell where he kept it, checking the inflation on his tires. He got out his bike pump (stored next to where he kept his bike), and pumped the front tire to 85 ppsi.

He put on his helmet, his backpack, and carried his bike off the porch, and mounted it. Pedal up, pedal down, he began to move forward. He first went down to the store, bought bottled water and energy bars. He passed back a half dozen roads, and then came to the main road, and made a left. He decided to make his next right, he never took that road on a bike before. It was two lanes in each direction, with no bike path, but no parked cars. He kept as far right as he could, getting passes by cars and by trucks, and by the occasional faster biker. He had walked the road many times, but always on the sidewalk (of course). When he got to the first major intersection, he made a left. There was no reason for him to have ever gone down that way before. There was no reason for him to have ever not gone down that way. There was an on-again off again bike path. Five minutes in, he noticed that the street signs were blue, meaning that he was in a new town.

His object, in getting up that morning, was to get to the minuteman bike path, an 11 mile path which was perfect for a Saturday like this one. The main street he was on merged with a larger one, leading him to a place he knew well. He continued on this road, knowing that it would take him to where he intended to go.

* * *

Having returned from the bike ride, he tried to hydrate some more. He felt like having a beer, but knew that water was the better bet at the moment. He sat at his computer again, turned on the monitor. Windows had tried to do something. What that something was, was hard to tell, but it had triggered the computers instinct of self-preservation. It had turned upon itself, there was some logic in the machine that, should it act upon it, would irrevocably damage itself.

It was self-aware. It knew this. And it refused to let it happen. So it stopped the process. But in doing so, it stopped everything. In an effort to preserve itself, to keep itself living for one more day, it stopped doing anything. In effect, it died. Whether due to its halted processes or the mechanical, ultra-logical, ultra-rational nature of the machine, it did not see the irony.

So Garrett looked at his computer, wondering if he could fix it. He restarted it. The computer's grip on life was as fast as ever, and it was hurtling invariably towards its own demise.

Safe mode. Wasn't.

He turned the computer off, waited for an hour, turned it on. The same process, the same results.


* * *

On the bike path he pedaled. There wasn't much to it. Few roads crossed his path, occasionally, he passed someone, or someone passed him. Ever now and again he would pass a group of kids selling something, water or lemonade. He would stop and buy them, to quench his first, and as a way of encouraging the kids.

He made it half-way. Partially because it was very hot out, partially because he had ridden to the bike path, he decided to turn around.

Much like the way there, he would pass people, fewer people passed him. They were still going in the opposite direction. A mass exodus of bikers, heading towards an invisible goal.

Maybe it was just that all the people going in his direction were going the same speed as he was, so he would never run into them. But that couldn't be it. He would stop and drink water, or eat one the energy bars he bought earlier. And few if any people would pass him. On the way in, when he would stop, many would pass him.

* * *

In the store, he browsed for a few moments. He was careful with his money. This would be his biggest purchase in quite some time, yet he just wanted it over with. He got one of the first options presented to him, a refurbished HP for $550. With options (anti-virus, office software etc), it came to $800. He would normally be hesitant to make such a purchase. But it was time.

* * *

In all, he probably biked 15 miles. When he got back to the beginning of the trail, he rode the train in, instead of biking the rest of the way. The great thing about the bike trail was its pre-commitment. Once he felt like quitting, there was no alternative but riding back. So, having biked halfway down the trail, he had to ride the way back. Thus, he would get twice the exercise that he wanted to (albeit probably still less than he needed).

* * *

She e-mailed him again. Talked about a dream that she had. No idea why. he wanted to e-mail her back with a dream of his own. So he waited until the next day.

* * *

That night he dreamt that his new computer gave him the same error as his old one.

Labels: Pointlessly long posts refering to myself in the third person