Acer's Adventure

There has always been a sense of shame in me since I broke my laptop.

I was typing that day when my Acer suddenly blacked out. It was not unusual at all since this kind of "small accident" had happened many times before. Realising that I had not saved my document yet, I was inundated by a surge of frustration. Glaring at the jet-black screen in front of me, I felt an unquenchable desire to knock it down. Fortunately, my sense was regained before I committed the serious "crime", but something bad was doomed to occur. 30 seconds later, I pushed the power-on button to restart my laptop when I heard an ominous crack.

At first I thought it was either Fred or George Apparated in my room, but seconds later the reality began to set in----the poor button was ripped off by me. I could not help feeling panicky when I peered inside the slit where the button was and met with nothing but pitch-darkness. Fumbling around the table for a toothstick to poke into the slit, I for the second time was ominously struck, because now the broken parts of the switch began to emerge, as if gloating to me with an air of arrogance:"See! I am out, and I am broken!"

I felt an urge to commit a serious crime again.

What happened next was doubtlessly clear. My sister came up into the room and glowered at me like a lioness. She held a strong belief that I was the culprit and what's more, a bona fide "barbarian". She said that word with a particular relish which made my hair stand on end. However, no matter what a "barbarian" I might be, the wrong was done, and someone was accountable for it, which was me, fair and clear. I explained again and again that I had been very gentle to it but only ghosts would believe in it. "Obviously, only a barbarian have the strength to rip that off!" was my sister's accusation. I was cornered and did no try to blame anyone anymore.

But there was one thing to be blamed on, and that was my laptop.

The old-to-core antique had brought about many discussions, quarrels and controversies even before it made a flight to Singapore. It had been a torturing headache right at the beginning of the pack-up. "Do we really need to bring it here? What if it comes here and becomes a useless junk? How long will it live to see the sunshine? Where can we even find someone to look at it when it goes wrong?" All those questions seemed to verdict its death even before it tried to survive, but all those assumptions and anxieties were not totally out of blue! We had the right to question its reliability since it was so old.

It was really very old with an age of eight years. Once I told Robert its age when he tried to fix it and he almost jumped out of his skin. What an antique! With the knowledge that when people get old they become senile even before they get dementia or Alzheimer's disease, I could safely deduce that something was going rickety there right inside the old bones of my eight-year-old Acer.

Despite all the paranoid assumptions, unscientific deductions and unfair accusations, we finally gave the "potential junk" an opportunity to fly here, and this is its destiny: being a bona-fide junk while reducing me into a bona-fide barbarian.

Today, my sister and I finally made it a point to make a decision: getting it repaired or getting it disposed of, while making a contribution to Singapore's landfill enterprise at the same time. So, without further ado, we went to the Little India, not to indulge ourselves in the curry stores, but to "make a decision".

We carried our poor Acer to Sim Lim Square and homed in on the repair stalls. Among those who received us, some were Chinese while others were Indians. They were all very helpful while some suggested us to dispose of it right away and others made an effort to look into the pitch-dark slit before sincerely recommending us to get a new one.

So the answer was quite clear----I was a murderer, directly responsible to the fate of our Acer, the 8-year-old antique which had not had a dementia or Alzheimer's disease yet.

And perhaps I am a barbarian, too?

I felt guilty, but it is a dubious guilt, because I did not exactly know whether it died of its old age or of my accused barbaric push. If it were the latter, I should have moaned even harder.

Perhaps the only soul who could have given me the answer was Acer, the poor thing who had not a chance to make a flight back again, not alive.

And I felt a sense of shame again. Oh! This barbarian!