Onderwêreld deur Fanie Viljoen | Prologue | English Summary | Onderwereld

 

Onderwêreld deur Fanie Viljoen

Prologue

SIGN ON

“The input of a combination of a user’s ID and password to gain access to a computer, program, or network.”

An eleven-year-old boy is woken up in the middle of the night by an unfamiliar sound. Or perhaps, he is awoken by something in his dreams that implores him to get up because he needs to stop a certain individual from doing something. He walks up to the wooden door of his father’s study and listens to the rustling of paper coming from beyond the door. When he grabs the doorknob, a chill runs down his entire body. A sound from inside the study that sounds like a frightened animal. The image remains burned into his memory; the memory of his father’s half-lit, half-obscured form bent over the desk seemingly writing something with a 9mm pistol where the pen should be, and a finger on the trigger.

The boy’s father appears to be in quite a state, with his knuckles white from the tension. The boy calls out to his father, who finally looks up to see his concerned son. When he asks his father what he is up to, the father stammers through sending his son back to bed. Shaken up by something, the father opens up his desktop drawer and sets the weapon therein, repeating his strained request for his son to return to bed; however, it is now clear that his face is drenched in tears. The boy had never seen his father cry before. The father tells his son not to tell his mother, and to keep it as their secret. The boy, now much older, remains scarred by the fear he experienced in this incident and chooses a name for himself that allows him to express and reflect how it felt “waiting for answers and only getting echoes from the underworld in response”. The boy’s new name is Ekk-0.

PING

“A computer assignment during which a packet of information is sent from one computer to another. The target computer must echo the information to confirm that it is active and reachable.”

SummariesKeroshan PillayComment