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<h><b>Reboot</b></h>
<p>Disconnecting device drives, closing programs, and restarting a computer's
operating system. This can be done for normal computer use or to help solve a
problem.</p>
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6
He walks down the dark corridor. It's like that night when he found his father in the study. Before
his eyes, he still saw his father's large body half bent over the desk when the door opened. He
sees the yellow envelope. Sees the 9 mm pistol.
His father wrapped it in a cloth and put it away in the drawer.
"You don't have to tell your mother. Okay? It's our secret," said his father. His face was wet
with tears. "Go to sleep now."
Inside him, his father's voice echoed as he tried to make sense of what he saw. There is a
pistol in the house? What does his father do with one?
Finally he turned, walking into the room with his father's words following him. "Goodnight, sleep
well..."
His father says his name, but he doesn't hear it. It's as if the darkness picks it up and hides it
in the folds of his robe. Now the dark knows about him and will call him by name as if he
belonged to the dark.
His real name, not just an echo of it.
"Xander, is that you?" asked a voice now in the study. It's six months after he found his father
there with the pistol that night. Then he was eleven. Twelve now. He had a birthday last month.
"Yes, Dad?"
"Come in, young one."
Xander pushed the door handle down. The metal is still cold. The door he pushed open still
smelled of polish, just like that last time.
"Everything okay?" asked his father from a leather chair by the fireplace. Papers are
scattered all around him. In his hands, a Montblanc pen and a book. Xander's eye slid over the
bookshelf, immediately seeing the place where the book is taken out.
.
, 7
"There's someone at the door for Dad," he said as he turned his head back"
"Did your mother let them in?"
"Do you know who it is?"
"Two uncles." His father's work sometimes brings people home. Mostly in suits. Off-white
shirts. Ties. These men were dressed differently. Just jeans and black T-shirts that tighten
around their upper arms.
His father put down the pen and closed the book in time. Frown. "I'm not expecting people.
I'm quite busy, Xander."
"The one uncle said it was urgent."
"Didn't he give his name?"
"No, but he said Tok sent him. It's a funny name."
"Dok?"
"Yes!"
His father rose from the chair, suddenly in a hurry, as if he was only now realizing what was
going on. His hand trembled as he touched his son. "Xander, go find a place to hide. You're not
coming out until I call you. Hurry! Hurry!"
Somewhere in the house a woman screams.
It knocked the breath out of Xander's chest. "Was it Mom?"
His father is with him. Grab his shoulders. "I love you, Xander. Remember that. Always. No
matter what happens." His father quickly kissed him on the forehead. There is a terrifying
urgency to the kiss, to his words. "Think smart, okay, boy? Now go, hide. Right away! Just go.
Go!"
It's as if the darkness's cloak tightens around him, and the more he tries to work out what's
going on, the tighter the grip tightens. Still his breath comes in short bursts and fear rips through
his body.
Dok.
It has something to do with it.
"Judge Gericke..." he heard the visitor say.
Xander looked over his shoulder as he ran down the hall. He saw the men's shadows move
across the wall in the portal.
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It's like monsters that have entered the house.
The anxiety pulsed through his brain. His mouth is dry.
"Evening, can I help you?" asked his father from the lobby, where the light glows softly. His
voice is strained, dull, as if speaking from a bottomless depth.
, Then Xander hears the punch, sees in the twitching shadow against the wall as his father
collapses.
That's what fear feels like: Fire flashes through your body, every nerve jolts awake,
adrenaline throws your thoughts into high gear, your eyes snap open, your breathing stops and
your chest cavity squeezes. And you hear it - your own heart. Knock. Knock. Knock.
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<h><b>Recovery drive</b></h>
<p>Any media, such as a memory stick, that contains a backup of the original factory
configuration of a computer. It is used to restore an operating system after a computer
crash or the corruption or deletion of data.</p>
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</html>
10
<h1>Scream</h1>
Greg Owen passed away. A team of divers retrieved his body from the Grand Canal in Venice
yesterday.
That's what the newspapers in the Turret Media group are about my report.
Greg Owen is dead.
Could it be true, after everything that happened? Maybe there is more to the story.
Yes, I was in Venice, where the main canal snakes through the city like a giant snake, and
yes, someone was pulled from the dark water. But other people were there with me. There were
five of us.
One of them is dead.
This is our story.
That's how it starts.
, Our house in Sandhurst has become a twilight place, mostly without sound, except for a ringing
mobile phone, a car in the street, a chef cooking in the kitchen, or when I deliberately turn up
music to dispel the silence .
When you enter the house, there is always this heavy feeling that lies inside you, like a coiled
snake.
That's how it started to feel the night we arrived home after I left Lawson College in the
middle of matric, a year and a half ago now. Something like that. Time also took on a different
meaning in this gloom. Days have gone by as you numbly struggle through it, only to wonder at
the end of such a day in court how you got through it.
Business partners who used to be good friends with my father,
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barely held their own. Always busy, as if they were afraid that a stain would rub off on them.
However, one unlikely guy turned up at the house one day, flowers in hand. "Let me know if
there is anything you need, Mrs Owen. Anything at all."
Thomas Lawson. TJ, who was in matric with me, said his grandfather.
As if he owed my father something.
And now that everything is over - school, Dok and my father's court case, the media feast -
the depressing feeling in our house is still there. I realized this when I lay in my bed for the last
time that night. Tomorrow it is time for a new beginning. At some point one has to move on.
That's life.
I exhale slowly, my eyes fixed on the wall where a Conrad Botes painting hangs. It's from his
The Temptation to Exist series. A self-portrait that I don't understand, but that I can look at for
hours. My mom bought it because she knows I like his hard brush art.
Further away, by the door, are the boxes, suitcases and other things that have to go with
them to Stellenbosch tomorrow. That's where I'm going to stay now. Stellies.
I have to sleep. It's already after twelve.
With my eyes closed, however, I again become intensely aware of the betrayal in me: the guy
who fed his own father to the wolves. It hurts in my chest. You can run away from home, Greg,
but no one gets away from your own weakness that easily. Nor from the shadow of the past.
I roll over. Still the sleep does not want to come.
Finally I get out of bed and walk to the bathroom. The light glowed brighter as I walked into
the room. I catch a stream of water in my hands, splash it over my face and watch it glisten over
my skin.
My face changed. I am no longer the same matric drawer that I was in Lawson College.
There is something more forceful about the way the corners of my face cut. Something sadder
in my eyes. A bitterness in the way my lips draw.
You also learn from the games you lose, I remember a rugby coach saying.
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