Just a Computer.

My grandmother was a very old lady, who was good with computers. No one knew why, not even her. Once she got her brain tumor, her life was terrible. The only thing that really made me think she was sane was this computer that I had given her for her birthday. But for some reason, she believed it was alive. It didn't matter what you told her. She wouldn't believe that the computer wasn't alive. I had doctors try to recon what she was thinking, but all just blamed it on her tumor. Part of me believed her because strange things happened since I brought it into the house. But the other part of me was like everyone else and believed that it was just her tumor or imagination. Which was a fair assumption, considering she was getting older, being 79 years old.

(I couldn't decide what ending I wanted for this story, so instead, I wrote two. One where the grandmother was right, and one where her tumor gets worse and worse. The first one is the one where she is right, the second where the tumor becomes worse.)

One day I got home from work and she was on her computer again. She was typing something. I looked over her shoulder to see what she was writing. She would ask a question, like what was your favorite color, and then an answer would be typed. Not by her, but by the computer! She would take her hands off the keys and the answer would appear. I'm shocked. I call the doctor to our house and show them. They look as shocked as I felt. We worked together to find that the computer did a lot more than write back to her. But it could also warm its keyboard on command, and brighten and darken the screen. But what was truly amazing was when we plugged it in. It could control every electrical thing in the house. We learned it could turn on and off the lights, and make the radio play certain songs.

We learned that my grandmother wasn't at all crazy in the slightest. Why in fact, it was more our fault because we had not believed her in the first place when we should have believed that she was not crazy because of her tumor. When we apologized she looked annoyed it took us this long to figure it out. When the doctor went home, I called the news. They would want to interview my grandmother and her alive computer. The next day, the computer learned how to talk, actual words. The news people showed up, but we had no clue whether they aired it or not. Because they most definitely needed to air such an exciting new development. Many were so excited that the computer even existed. People came in to look at it, and it was all over the press. We were known as the supercomputer family.

On the third day, we had people from all over the country, scientists and electrics trying to ask about our alive computer. The computer demanded to be cleaned, so it could even look better than other computers. Scientists came by all the time now to check it out. And then we started getting people from all over the country bidding to have the computer. I would take my grandmother into the woods, the only place where we were in privacy anymore, to ask if I should sell it. We were starting to get bids on millions of dollars. We'd be well off for life! But my grandmother continued to have some sort of emotional attachment to Mack. Which was the name of the computer that we gave it. Well, I gave it. It made the most sense for a name.

But overall, we were living it up. Life got easier with Mack around. It was like having a helping hand, without having another mouth to feed. Mack was almost stolen from us once, but thank god I could fight it out of them. Mack was adamant and claimed we were not to let anyone other than friends he knew into the house. I agreed with him, no more strangers. I noticed my grandmother getting better and better as well. Mack was able to find things to keep her tumor, and even was able to make doctor appointments when I got too busy. He made alarms for her medicine. I was so grateful we had been blessed. Life without him was so hard. But now with him, there wasn't anything we couldn't do.

(Ending two.)

My grandmother after coming home from work one day was typing on the computer. I saw she was asking questions. I saw a few friendly questions on there. I thought she was going to try to make a friend or something. And then she stuttered, "C-c-c-comp-puter t-t-talk to me." I was so confused. I called the doctors. They said there really was no hope. The tumor was growing worse and worse. There was nothing left to do. They pulled her off her meds shortly after. It was becoming a waste of time they said. And after pulling her from them, I noticed no real difference. Her funeral, small, was lovely. It reminded me of those last few hard days when she had just about given up on life. When the only thing she could really do was "talk" to the computer.

I cried hard all night. She was the only real mom I had ever had. I loved her with all my heart. She was my favorite person ever. She had supported me my entire life. And nothing in her will, not the money or property, was the same as her. I savored her computer so. It was something I made sure was well maintained. She'd taken such great care of it. She really believed that it was alive sometimes. But I still loved her. She might have been wrong, but it wasn't her fault. I know losing a close loved one is always hard. But it was almost harder when it was her.