At the Computer Class

At the facility’s computer class, one of the projects we had to work on one morning was ‘computer personality.’ Each machine was set to run a program which asked us to write the warnings and messages and announcements which pop up on the screen when the user needs to know something. The machine asked me to write a message telling the user to plug the machine into the wall when the batteries were low. ‘WARNING,’ I wrote, ‘Low battery. Please connect machine to mains immediately!’
Lucy, who sat to my right, was giggling at her screen, which made me cringe. She had her hair in bunches, which trembled when she laughed.
The machine asked me to make up a message for when the program you were trying to run might not be very safe.
‘STOP!’ I put, ‘check for virus before loading!’
The teacher was a fat man with a bald patch in the middle of the back of his head. The hair was brushed neatly around it. He wore a red woollen jumper with black bits, and sandals. I was suspicious of him because he was always so friendly.
The computer asked me what the pop-up box should say when a new message had arrived. I wrote ‘You have a new message!’
Lucy was typing a lot. I sneaked a look at her the way I can sometimes do without someone noticing. She has a roll of her stomach that sits over her jeans. She wears too bright clothes, and when I looked really close, I saw she had flaky skin around her mouth.
The program said to write something for when you were accidentally going to close a window without saving your work.
‘STOP! Save before closing!’ I said. I was pleased with this one.
Lucy dressed like she was a little girl, when she was at least thirty, and it made me feel angry that she was so stupid. I didn’t believe her when she giggled.
The computer asked me to write the message for when you have to type in your password. I wrote ‘KILL LUCY.’ I felt much better.
When we had written a few more messages, the teacher walked around talking to people and they all started moving chairs around and fussing which was noisy and made me anxious. He came over to me and talked to me and Lucy. He said ‘Ok you two, swap machines. Time to discover each other's personalities!’
I got up and walked out without saying anything. I never went back to computer classes.