I wailed. I howled at the open sky. It took three of them to restrain me, but not before I’d brained the cook with my laptop.

My sweet Lord, what am I going to do?

They pushed me into the street. A fistful of cash settled the damages, avoided arrest. I found a cranny behind a market stall and switched on the laptop.

I felt a moment of hope when the Kubuntu bootscreen came up. Then the monitor darkened. Splotches of white began to appear on the monitor, a ghostly black and white image of a pudgy, waiter-like bird that disappeared almost as quickly as it came.

I felt tears on my cheek.

bergman@mymachine:~$shutdown

I crossed my fingers, prayed it would work.

bash: thou hast eaten of my flesh
bash: thou hast sinned against mine

The monitor flickered again. An image appeared on my screen and I screamed in horror, clawed at my eyes. Worse than the image were the four words accompanying it:

Windows Vista™ ©Microsoft Corporation.

A shriek tore my throat:

“Tux, why hast thou forsaken me!”