I spent several days running different kinds of antivirus and restorative techniques. But it was super fucked beyond my competency to repair. Rather the correct and safest thing to do with an infected “black box” is wipe it clean. So I junked it for Ubuntu. Not just to be practical; the power port is still broken and the specs are obsolete, this is not a practical machine.

His login was “Magistrate”, which was particular about him. It belonged to the lexicon of words we used as children in play. Canonical cool words. I did everything in my power to preserve this Windows instance so his username remained in existence. Ultimately I wiped the thing.

Now when I see that machine, it’s empty. Bland, dull. A thing that is there. Like a body bereft its soul. So I have this tension surrounding “Magistrate” that persists within me. Into my memories, my thoughts.

I caught a computer virus.