Computer Demon

Status: Trying to work
Song: In Your Room - Depeche Mode

I'm Going to Burn my Computer at the Stake

My Last Computer Was Possessed.

Yep. That's what I said.

Possessed... Bedeviled... Haunted... Taken over!!!

Unquestioningly, living inside the workings of my computer was a fiend.

At first I thought thought it was an imp, a tiny thing. At least he led me to believe he was tiny. I envisioned him as a demented little creature crawling around like Gollum in the dark of my hard drive, peeking at what I was doing and then out of pure cussedness freezing things up.

Computer Imp
(Not my picture)

I could hear him chortling in the back corner of the hard drive while I said a few 'not nice' words and got out of the program I was in so I could start over.

It became a bizarre game. For months, after several unsuccessful attempts at kicking him out, I worked around him. I frequently had to start things over. My sojourns onto the internet were fraught with interruptions and attempts at going to places I didn't want to go. I became convinced my computer had joined forces with the little varmint.

Either that, or my imp was getting bigger.

Computer Beast
(Still not my Picture)

My imp seemed to have turned into a beast that had a mind of its own. Not satisfied with just annoying me, it now wanted to take over. It tried to log onto the internet while I was writing. The computer would freeze up and then start the process of getting onto the internet. I had to close window after window it threw up in its fight to get past me. Each week there was an additional window, so shutting him down took longer.

I had to resort to keeping the computer disconnected from the internet when I wasn't logged on. Only being unplugged didn't stop the beast from trying. I still had to close all the windows, even though he couldn 't get on.

I was winning!!! Ha ha ha ha.

Oh... the fool that I was.

The beast was taking over the computer. It was gradually kicking me out--day after day, week after week. I realized it was a fiend and had been all along--a cunning ghoul that had me bamboozled from the start. Laughing at me, planning to drive me crazy.

Computer Ghoul
(Sam West's Picture)

He was eating up the room on my computer, taking over the programs and the applications. I was the one who had to sneak around in order to get things done. I had to wait while he tried unsuccessfully to get on the internet, or still tried to go places I wouldn't let him go while I was on the internet. He never stopped trying. Day after day, hour after hour.

I had a friend try to exorcise him. The monster reprogrammed himself every fifteen seconds. He also rewrote all the anti spy programs and anti virus programs so they were ineffective. After several hours of fighting with the thing, my friend gave up and said, sounding very impressed, "It's very robust."

Robust? .... Did he say Robust?

Ya think???? I couldn't get into many of the programs I needed. I had to send all my stuff to a willing helper so she could submit them for me. Or I had to call her on the phone and talk her through what I needed to look up and have her send them to me.

I wanted the thing DEAD!!!!

How could my friend be impressed?

There were times I wanted to throw the thing out the window. No... There were times when I wanted to take it to the overpass and drop it in front of an oncoming train. I wanted to see the square monster smashed and shattered to thousands of pieces, flung in every direction in a satisfying glittering spread of carnage.

The time had come to admit I didn't have an imp, or a beast, or even a ghoul. I had a Demon. And he needed to be destroyed.

Abbysal Emperor
by Jason Engle

He's been sitting on my desk all this time, letting me think he was basically harmless, a nuisance at best, a virus eating my computer at the worst. But I had an Archfiend, a malignant spirit with the power to destroy everything I was working on, and let anyone who cared to look see it all.

HE HAD TO GO.

Demon going

I have a brand new laptop now, a gift from two very generous people. I love it. It's been wonderful not having a devil plague my every move.

Fancy 'I can take it anywhere and I do' computer

The other day, though....

There started up on my computer some very familiar disturbances.

This time though, there were some things that were different--for one, windows popping up, faster and faster and faster until I couldn't keep up with them to close them.

Great.

I had another beast. Only this one had teeth.


I didn't wait. I got the tools to smash him. Gone. Finito. Terminated.

(Hopefully. We'll see.)

One thing about demons you live with for a long while. It's not so easy getting rid of them. You get attached.

That wasn't my demon being burnt at the stake. My Abbysal Emperor is still sitting in the back corner of my desk. He's trapped in the tower, waiting for the day I finally decide to throw him onto the fire. Until then I know he's there.

Looking for a way to get out.