Glitch

I used to use the computer a lot. I would stay up late just surfing the web, playing games I’d beaten long ago. I guess it became an obsession. It got so bad that I would stay up till midnight just doing nothing. I tried to stop. Sometimes I could manage to go to sleep early, but lately I’ve never been in bed before eleven.

It’s weird, I never feel like this during the day. I can handle not being on the computer in the morning. I get lots of stuff done; cleaning up, studying, pretty much being a productive person. But now things have gotten worse.

I started feeling really bad after going to sleep. It would hit me while I was on the computer that my eyes were really burning. Only when they started tearing up would my gaze be broken from the screen and realize I hadn’t been blinking. Weirder things started happening when I blinked too.

It started out harmless. Web pages would load real slowly. My mouse would freeze. Programs would start ending randomly. Nothing actually out of the ordinary. I would just refresh the page, reconnect the mouse, and press end now.

But it got worse.

I got on the computer one night to find it was completely shut down. I always suspend the computer when I log off, so this struck me as odd. When it started up again, it entered safe mode. After fiddling with the settings, I finally got it working again. For maybe two weeks things went on without a fuss. I was browsing a blog, just slowly reading and scrolling down when a picture showed up. It was one of those awful pictures of a dead body, like, someone who had been in a car crash or explosion. It wasn’t a pop-up or anything. It was part of the blog. I was a bit concerned, the blog made no mention of this and had never used pictures before. I scrolled down so the picture was gone, and the blog continued like nothing strange was up.

I stopped going on the blog eventually. More and more gruesome pictures were showing up. I commented on one entry about it and was met with confusion. No one else was complaining. I wrote it off as some in joke to get rid of all the noobs.

Other sites I frequent are taking up this shock picture trick. It’s becoming a real pain. I’m starting to fear clicking on every link.

I closed internet explorer today to find my background had been changed to another horrible photo. I couldn’t help but recognize this one. It was one I saw in drivers’ ed of a particularly gruesome drunk driving incident. After resetting my background, deleting the picture I had apparently saved to my hard drive, cleaning up and defragging my hard drive, I opened the recycling bin to get rid of it once and for all.

I was a bit stunned. My bin was full of all sorts of random things I knew I never saved. There were porn sites, illegal downloads, pictures, e-mails, and other files with extensions I wasn’t familiar with. I cleared them all and decided I get some outside help.

I started looking online for any similar incidents. With no results I called Geek Squad, my Dad, and even brought the computer in to major dealers for a check-up. One large bill later, no problems were detected. Most even commented on how well kept the computer was.

The pictures stopped appearing, but I almost wish they were still the problem. My computer now displays everything almost as it should be. But now, whenever a person is displayed, their eyes are gouged out. It looked like a crappy Paint job at first, but they became more and more real. I tried showing it to a friend, but the computer worked fine when he was around.

I finally let my friend have the computer. He always commented on what a great machine it was when he was over. I’m glad to be done with it. I had just bought a much more updated one and after starting it up, I was very happy to see everything working normally. I decided not transfer all the data from my old computer to the new one.

Happy to be done with it, I close the brand new model. It’s only nine thirty and I turn on the television, knowing that I can get a good night sleep after Futurama. I lay back and turn up the volume to hear the opening theme. I recognize the unique little blurb they have, like what they do with the Simpsons; this is the infamous “dog” episode. I get ready to feel sad when my heart jumps.

Fry’s eyes are missing.