The Young Hacker Who Flew Past

This sad and tragic occurrence began thus:

THREE PERSONS, IN three different poses, were carrying on an animated conversation on the sixth floor of a large apartment building.

The woman, with plump beautiful arms, was clutching a bed sheet over her computer and its flatscreen monitors, forgetting that a bed sheet could not do double duty and cover the shapely bare power strip at the same time. The woman was crying, and in the intervals between sobs she was saying:

"Oh John! I swear to you I'm not guilty! He set my head in a whirl, he seduced me—and, I assure you, gained your username and password all against my will, I resisted""

One of the men, still in his hat and overcoat, was gesticulating wildly and upbraiding the third person in the room:

"Scoundrel! I'm going to show you right now that you will perish like a cur and the law will be on my side! You shall pay for using my login to recordpub.com! You reptile! You base hacker!"

The third in this room was a young hacker who, although not dressed with the greatest meticulousness at the present moment, wearing pop-bottle spectacles, bore himself, nevertheless, with great dignity.

"I? Why, I haven't done anything! I—" he protested, gazing sadly into an empty corner of the room.

"You haven't? Take this, then, you scoundrel!"

The powerful man in the overcoat flung open the window giving out upon the street, gathered the young hacker who was none too meticulously dressed in his arms, and heaved him out.

Finding himself flying through the air the young hacker bashfully buttoned his vest, and whispered to himself in consolation:

"Never mind! Our failures merely serve to harden us! Besides, I just backed up my postings on my USB drive." And he kept on flying downward.

He had not yet had time to reach the next floor (the fifth) in his flight, when a deep sigh issued from his breast. A recollection of the computer he had just left poisoned with its bitterness all the delight in the sensation of flying.

"My God!" thought the young hacker. "Why, I loved her computer, quad core and all! And she could not find the courage even to confess everything to her husband! God be with her! Now I can feel that she is distant, and indifferent to me."

With this last thought he had already reached the fifth floor and, as he flew past a window he peeked in, prompted by curiosity.

A young student was sitting reading a book, "Advanced C++ Programming", at a lopsided table, his head propped up in his hands.

Seeing him, the young hacker who was flying past recalled his life; recalled that heretofore he had passed all his days in worldly distractions, forgetful of learning and books; and he felt drawn to the light of knowledge, to the discovery of nature's mysteries with a searching mind, drawn to admiration before the genius of the great masters of words.

"Dear, beloved student!" he wanted to cry out to the man reading, "you have awakened within me all my dormant aspirations and cured me of the empty infatuation with the vanities of life, which have led me to such grievous disenchantment on the sixth floor—"

But, not wishing to distract the student from his studies, the young hacker refrained from calling out, flying down to the fourth floor instead, and here his thoughts took a different turn. His heart contracted with a strange sweet pain, while his head grew dizzy-from delight and admiration.

A young woman was sitting at the window of the fourth floor and, with a high-end game machine before her, was at work upon something.But her beautiful white hands had forgotten about work at that moment, and her eyes—blue as cornflowers—were looking into the distance, pensive and dreamy.

The young hacker could not take his eyes off this vision, and some new feeling, great and mighty, spread and grew within his heart. And he understood that all his former encounters with women had been no more than empty infatuations, and that only now he understood that strange mysterious word—Love. And he was attracted to the quiet domestic life; to the endearments of a being beloved beyond keyboard shortcuts; to a smiling existence, joyous and peaceful.

The next story, past which he was flying just then, confirmed him still more in his inclination.

In the window of the third floor he saw a mother who, singing a soft lullaby and laughing, was bouncing a plump smiling baby; love, and a kind maternal pride were sparkling in her eyes." I, too, want to marry the girl on the fourth floor, and have just such rosy plump children as the one on the third floor," mused the young hacker, "and I would devote myself entirely to my family, teach my children all my hacks, and find my happiness in this self-sacrifice."

But the second floor was now approaching. And the picture which the young hacker saw in a window of this floor forced his heart to contract again.

A man with disheveled hair and wandering gaze was seated at a luxurious writing table. He was gazing at a blue-screened monitor before him; at the same time he was writing with his right hand and, holding a revolver in his left, was pressing its muzzle to his temple.

"Stop, madman!" the young hacker wanted to call out. "Linux is so beautiful!" But some instinctive feeling restrained him. The luxurious appointments of the room, its richness and comfort, led the young hacker to reflect that there was something else in life which could disrupt even all this comfort and contentment, as well as a whole family; something of the utmost force—mighty, terrific…

"What can it be?" he wondered with a heavy heart. And, as if on purpose, Life gave him a harsh unceremonious answer in a window of the first floor, which he had reached by now.

Nearly concealed by the draperies, a young man was sitting at the window, sans coat and vest; a half-dressed woman was sitting at a computer in front of him, lovingly entwining her fingers on the keyboard and passionately logging comments on some unknown website…

The young hacker who was flying past recalled that he had seen this woman, known as The Liberal Exposer, out walking with her husband—but this man was decidedly not her husband. Her husband was older, with curly black hair, half-gray, while this man had beautiful fair hair.

And the young hacker recalled his former plans: of studying, after the student's example; of marrying the girl on the fourth floor; of a peaceful, domestic life, à la the third and once more his heart was heavily oppressed.

He perceived all the ephemerality, all the uncertainty of the happiness of which he had dreamed; beheld, in the near future, a whole procession of young men with beautiful fair hair about his wife, his computer, and himself; remembered the torments of the man on the second floor and the measures which that man was taking to free himself from these torments—and he understood.

"After all I have witnessed living is not worthwhile! It is both foolish and tormenting," thought the young hacker, with a sickly, sardonic smile; and, contracting his eyebrows, he determinedly finished his flight to the very sidewalk. Nor did his heart tremble when he touched the flagstones of the pavement with his hands and, breaking those now useless members, he dashed out his brains against the hard indifferent stone.

And, when the curious gathered around his motionless body, it never occurred to any of them what a complex drama the young hacker had lived through just a few moments before.

Kent Sheetz, yes, Liberal is very lucky to have KentCouncilWatch, we just call him Watch, for a friend. Watch is a former student I mine when I taught English composition at Wattsomatta U. a few years ago. Watch was one of my most brilliant students, although he was a bit quirky. He always had this overwhelming fear of birds. He is much better no thanks to the medication, he no longer goes into seizures at the mere mention of a raptor, but he still struggles.

I understand that his entire family calls him watch. It seems that when he was a child and when his parents asked what he wanted for Christmas he replied "watch". Well, he got his wish, they let him. So now he watches the Council but just doesn't get the thrill he used to. So if comes to your ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as Watch makes when enveloped in cotton, you'll know he is just hiding his anguish with that ski mask.

KentCouncilWatch, I've read this more times than "Sexy Sasha" has been nabbed, and putting aside the politics, I still find it clever and amusing.

Mrs. Exposer, your child is fortunate to have such a talented friend.

TRUE! —nervous —very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses —not destroyed —not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily —how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the Hawkman. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a hawk —a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees —very gradually —I made up my mind to take the seat of the Hawkman, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded —with what caution —with what foresight —with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the Hawkman than during the weeks I circulated the recall petitions. Every day, from dawn to dusk, I paced the streets in search of the disgruntled citizen, any who could not bear his designs for our troubled city. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I enlisted them in my desperation, subscribing themselves to my defamous petitions. And every morning, when the day broke, I counted them, again and again, anxious that the number be adequate to withstand the trial of verification. And I imagined the disgraced Hawkman driven from Council while I kept vigil, seeing his heart torn out by disenchanted voters, his designs rent asunder.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? The dread of that piercing eye, that devil's eye, compelled the exhaustive circumspection I took with the petitions. Each night I arduously compared the signatures affixed to them with the lists of registered voters for the city and ward. I enumerated only those that matched, envisioning each a needle stabbing the relentless Evil eye, that hawk eye, of the Hawkman. My mind saw the Hawkman blinded, stumbling from the council chamber into darkness, never more to return. I knew that in that darkness, bare of arms, he would certainly perish at the hands of the lawless, the riotous student, the impoverished citizen.

Then the deed was done, the petitions filed, and the signatures tallied. The day of recall was selected and the infamy published. Eagerly I awaited that day but with increasing apprehension. What if the Hawkman prevailed? How would I avoid the stare of that cold eye, that evil eye, that would discover my designs for his unseating?

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the voter rolls and newspaper accounts. The night of the election waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered each newspaper. I cut out the articles and the letters to the editor. I placed all, voter rolls and clippings, in folders, bound together, and locked in a steel box, a casket for the stricken heart of the Hawkman.

I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye —not even his —could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out —no stain of any kind —no beer spill whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all —ha! ha!

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock —still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, —for what had I now to fear? There entered three, trish83, rocky56, and Liberal Exposer, faces grim, each a bearer of unhappy tidings, we had achieved defeat and nothing more. "Again?" I inquired. Quoth the Exposer, "Nevermore."

It's been a pleasure speaking with you, as always, Mrs. Exposer.

Kent Sheetz, I did see that. I was astonished when I read it. Somebody is in for an awakening.

Yes, The Liberal Exposer deserves credit for debunking Obama from the start, long before it became stylish. I wish she could have articulated herself a little better so fewer people would have been turned off.

I'm going to let her rest so I won't be posting for a while.

Mrs. Exposer, I'm content to let you have the last word on the subject. I never worry who's packing what, and now is no time to start.

Have you seen this letter?

http://www.recordpub.com/news/no_byline_article/4623035

The writer, a new Record-Courier reader, praises the newspaper for publishing a Dan Thomasson opinion critical of President Obama. The Record-Courier, she says, is perhaps "the first newspaper to expose the president for what he is."

Of course, readers of the Record-Courier online know that The Liberal Exposer has been debunking President Obama in these pages for months.

Let's give credit where credit is due.

Not only was I surprised by that trip and its outcome, but Liberal's wife even more so. You see, she had ambitions to go one up on Lorena Bobbitt but found those aspirations nipped in the bud. Or was it in the Schlitz?

Mrs. Exposer,

Yes, that's exactly right, you did mention the unmentionables!

Well, I learned two things today. First, that a person visiting Milwaukee can find something fun to do after the funeral, and second, that Schlitz tastes that way because they make it that way.

If my memory serves me, I mentioned earlier Liberal's penchant for wearing my underwear, and how I told my husband not to worry about it. Well, suddenly I found out that Liberal made a trip to Milwaukee to see how they put Schlitz in cans.