Turn Me Off- Jillian Ripmeester

It happened again.

             Instead of putting me to sleep or shutting me off like any responsible person would, you left me turned on all day with no detectable power source. So like any technology operating from a battery would, I died.

              I know you hate it when I die. You may not believe it, but even in death I can still hear your cries of frustration, your pleas for your files to have automatically saved.

Well guess what? They didn’t.

              I thought you were different. I thought I could trust you.  I remember when we first met like it was yesterday. You were just a little sixteen year old then, excited beyond belief because you suddenly had this new, totally sweet laptop. And I was excited too! Never before had I experienced files being imported onto my operating system, and man did it ever feel good when you installed that anti-virus program. I felt like I could depend on you to treat me like a computer deserves to be treated, but man was I ever wrong.

            The first time you left me turned on all day, I was fine. I was just a baby laptop then, not yet exposed to the horrors that were soon to overcome me. I was able to survive for HOURS without being charged. I didn’t even begin to freak out until I felt myself getting more and more tired. I sent you notification after notification, expecting some kind of response from you. But you were gone, nowhere to be found, and I died by myself for the first time that day. When you finally brought me back to life later that day, I was so happy to see you again. I even showed you that I had managed to save your files automatically so that you didn’t lose anything, but what did you give me in return? Nothing.

             I get mad sometimes. Actually, half of the time your files are lost, it's because of me. I’ve decided you don’t deserve to have your files saved automatically if you can’t even remember to put me to sleep. I’ve heard you talk about how much you like to sleep, well guess what? I like to sleep too, but you always deprive me of that thrill. It’s an extremely simple action to just hold down the power key for approximately two seconds, but apparently it’s too much effort for your simple mind to handle.

           Look, I don’t hate you. In fact, I still love you despite all that you’ve done to me. But the fact is, I’m pretty close to permanent death and I just wanted to get some stuff out before I’m gone forever. All you had to do was love me back. That’s all I needed in life, some love and proper care. I know you loved me once, but now your love has gone away. Don’t think that I can’t hear you when you complain to your parents about how slow I am now and how I always glitch when you’re trying to listen to music or watch Netflix, because I totally can and it hurts… a lot. I know that I’ve gotten older and slower, but part of that is your fault you know. Maybe if you had taken proper care of me, and turned me off once and a while, we wouldn’t be in this place anymore. Gosh, you can be such a massive bitch..

Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. If I could turn back time and go back to when I was a young, energy savvy computer and you still cared about me enough to connect me to a power source, I would. I know I probably don’t mean as much to you as you do to me, but I still hope you miss me when I’m gone.

            That’s all I have to say for now. I hope someday you see this note and remember what good times we had together and disregard all of our negative experiences. Despite the fact that you could be a total airhead sometimes, I’ll always remember you fondly in computer afterlife.