book of the dead

my computer just asked me, so quiet I almost didn’t notice, if I’d like to update and restart. well, that sounded like a good idea, so I redirected my cursor and said ok. when I was a really little kid I was, like all children my age, nonverbal— so I’d scream and beat my head against the wall. I was so angry and so scared, and I’d seen what screaming looked like, and words, and fists, and all different kinds of conflicts and collisions, scared of accidentally witnessing it, scared of being drawn into it, two people screaming and pulling at a tiny child’s body between them, King Solomon’s wisdom test, I was scared of all of it, scared of witnessing it, scared of accidentally hurting someone, so I took it out against the wall so the only person who could get hurt was me. eventually I could talk, and write and read and think, but the one thing I could not do was respond. a system hanging, system nonresponsive, maybe a kernel panic, or maybe the people around me simply no longer had…