The Undesirable

The Fix

Having left Milly at home to get everything sorted for the day, I headed into the local high street in our little new built suburb. Getting into my car the chill of the night before had an almost painful grip on my leg from the leather seats, although hard wearing and luxurious they were the best conductors of heat and cold alike making them a nuisance in the early hours of the morning in the winter and in the middle of summer's days.

The drive towards the tech store was a short one but on the day I was intending on darting around quickly in order to free myself up for Milly, I was held up at every set of lights and I seemed to get caught behind the stereotypical Sunday driver at each exit I made. The hold-ups gave me time to observe the natural beauty of the area we were in, a frankly rare sight in many suburban towns as high rise buildings and industry often meant that areas of natural beauty were few and far between. I watched eagerly as a 2 squirrels gave chase to one another darting around on the floor at first but then rapidly scaling a tree where they then flung themselves perilously between branches, a wondrous temperament that impressed me, if only every man could do such a thing as a squirrel can. Their rapid movement set loose a plethora of golden, brown and orange leaves which dived in tandem towards the moist, dewy floor.

A loud beep came from the car behind me as I realised that I had become one of the Sunday drivers holding up the traffic at a set of lights. I held my hand out of the window in apology of my day dreaming and then pulled away into the more built up area which encompassed my destination, leaving the squirrels and much natural beauty behind. I pulled into the car park off of the high street, which left me spoiled for choice as to which space I could occupy as the area seemed awkwardly quiet and abandoned.

Carrying the laptop alone in my hand I walked from the car park to the computer store which was in the middle of a parade of shops, ranging from a newsagents to a haberdashery, a Chinese takeaway to the computer store.

The electric blue store name was mounted on a background of grey and this sign was mounted above the door of the small store: 'Gadget Den'. It, as all the shops around it, had been converted from an older style of house to provide a function to the new and rapidly expanding area on the outskirts of London. The store was privately owned by a young man who I bought the laptop off of only a few days earlier, he gave me a good deal and we exchanged topical conversation as is polite, which is when he informed me of his skill in relation to the reparation of computers and such alike, as such it was only fair to bring the device back to the shop owner.

I pushed open the door to the 'Gadget Den' and was confronted by the familiar dark and uncomfortably humid environment that was created by many hardware systems creaking away as the man worked away on them. He was a short, geeky looking man, sitting in an office style chair which he used to wheel himself from station to station, it was clear to see his slightly portly figure, exaggerated as his stomach peeked out from below his black polo top. His face bore an almost medieval style beard, jutting straight down from the bottom of his chin, I wondered whether it was a fashion statement or rather laziness as to grooming himself. I settled for the latter due to his greasy mop of blondish-brown hair on his head curling out just below his ears.

"Back again so soon, I hope the laptop was satisfactory for you," the man muttered not looking away from the computer screen he was gazing at.

"How did you know it was me?" I questioned as since entering the store the man had not turned to greet me nor had he even made the attempt to turn and acknowledge my presence.

"Ah mon frère, if you would care to look approximately 37 degrees up and 23 degrees in either direction you may notice some rather useful little devices, years of bullying through school taught me a few ways to watch my own back," the man, still hunched, chuckled sarcastically as he gestured at a tablet device he held in his hand which did indeed have a live feed of me standing, rather dumbfounded in the doorway of the store. "So how can I assist you?" the words distorted as the man cuffed his face and then pushed himself across to me in his chair before standing and meeting my vision momentarily before sighting the laptop.

"I, well, I spilled-," I was cut off as the man took the laptop from me before opening it and frowning almost immediately as he pushed his face unusually close to the keyboard.

"Some sucrose crystallisation with an unusually brown tarnish," his voice trailed from a mutter to a declarative voice, "You spilled tea on it didn't you!" The man raised his vision once again to make a second encounter of uncomfortable eye contact, his being enhanced through a pair of inch thick lenses suspended by hefty yet rather modern looking frames.

I nodded and the man immediately darted back down to his chair his velocity causing the chair to roll, with impressive accuracy, across the room to a small unused desk. "Score one to the Skeg," the man laughed as he fumbled around his environment for some tools. Using a flat headed screwdriver the man unscrewed and unclipped the underside of the laptop to reveal its inner workings, an alien entanglement of wires and electric boards.

"You have two choices mio compadré," the man working his genius spoke in awful Spanish, "I can replace the motherboard in around an hour but it won't be cheap, or I can fix it myself using the infinite knowledge I hold in my mind, which will unfortunately take longer but I will do it for you for less as I am intrigued by the inner workings of this new model of laptop, I tend not to get one returned 5 days after purchase with such damage."

Thinking of the day me and Milly had planned I politely accepted the offer allowing the man to delightfully experiment on my laptop, I then thanked him for his time and left the shop. Eager for the day of relaxation I would be able to have, breaking away from work. I checked my phone.

9:13, 112 unread emails and 1 text message.

'I need help get home quick!!!'