Justifiable Killings

By Glen Martin

Derek Hardy, a reserved man living in a Manhattan apartment, has long been haunted by memories of relentless bullying from his past. These scars have manifested as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and haunting nightmares. To cope, Derek has relied on meditation and visualization techniques, often imagining the bullies meeting grim fates.

However, when these coping mechanisms falter, Derek’s suppressed emotions threaten to overwhelm him. Succumbing to his darkest impulses, he embarks on a chilling spree, exacting revenge on those who tormented him, starting with his boss, Desmond Buckley.

This tale delves into the profound effects of trauma and the dangerous consequences of emotions left unchecked, illustrating how even the most unassuming individual can be pushed to the brink.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781035825578

Glen Martin

Glen Martin is a highly educated, well-read individual with a keen passion for psychological thrillers. Glen possesses a master’s degree in mental health psychology which he incorporates into his writing. Glen is also a massive movie enthusiast with a love for dark and violent thrillers. He writes about things that he loves, topics that he becomes obsessed with and makes sure every sentence, paragraph, and chapter is done perfectly. By utilizing cliffhangers and twists to keep the readers turning pages, he sends his audience into a rabbit hole of graphic and pragmatic content that people encounter in their everyday lives.

Book preview

About the Author

Glen Martin is a highly educated, well-read individual with a keen passion for psychological thrillers. Glen possesses a master’s degree in mental health psychology which he incorporates into his writing. Glen is also a massive movie enthusiast with a love for dark and violent thrillers. He writes about things that he loves, topics that he becomes obsessed with and makes sure every sentence, paragraph, and chapter is done perfectly. By utilizing cliffhangers and twists to keep the readers turning pages, he sends his audience into a rabbit hole of graphic and pragmatic content that people encounter in their everyday lives.

Copyright Information ©

Glen Martin 2023

The right of Glen Martin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035825561 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035825578 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Chapter One

A small child runs down the hallway of his school in terror and fear, the sound of sinister and haunting laughter following him. It’s after hours and the school is empty, all the staff and students have gone home. The hallway is encapsulated in darkness, just the light from the moon projecting through the windows bestows enough light to see. The small child with his lungs burning and heart racing from running decides to change his tactics and hide in a vacant locker. Closing it firmly behind him he clasps his hand over his mouth to try and suppresses loud breathing. Beads of warm sweat drip down his forehead and drop onto the floor.

Shortly after, the sound of footsteps from the other students chasing him gets louder and louder as they run down the hallway and pass the locker. Three shadows run by swiftly, each one with a threatening and petrifying laugh. Then there’s silence, the small boy releases his hand from his mouth and contemplates leaving the security of the locker. Until a loud bang echoes down the hallway. The sound of a locker door being slammed closed further down.

Then another bang, and another, each one getting louder and closer. The banging noise becomes rapid, gradually getting louder, like a steel drum being pounded. The small boy steps as far back in the locker as he can, and winces in fear, clenching his body tightly, preparing himself to be discovered. Then his locker swings open and bangs loudly, the light from the moon revealing him cowering in the locker, terrified. Three tall and slender dark figures standing completely still over him, chuckling loudly as they just stare at him trembling in the locker. Suddenly, one of them leaps forward and grabs him by the collar and—

Derek Hardy suddenly wakes up in his bed in a shock, breathing heavily and panicking slightly from the nightmare. He quickly swings his legs out of the bed and tries to catch his breath, cold sweat drips from his face down onto the cold floorboards in between his feet. His left wrist pulsating with pain from an old injury he got when in school. He opens the drawer from his bedside locker and removes a box of anti-inflammatories. He takes two without any water and slows his breathing. Another sleepless night.

After some time has passed his eyes slowly open and adjust themselves to a bright bedroom as the New York autumn sunshine fills his apartment. On a Monday morning, he isn’t usually due in for work until 13:00, but due to consistent nightmares, he is typically an early riser. He turns off his alarm which was set to go off in another three hours and immediately arises from his bed, throwing the duvet off himself he unveils his silk silver pyjamas and stretches his upper body before standing himself up. His bedroom is decorated with movie posters and multiple head bobbles of fictional horror characters such as the Joker, Pennywise the clown, Freddy Kreuger, and various other horror film characters from different movies.

There are shelves stacked with DVDs and comic books which are all related to brutality, sadism, and violence. Derek finds comfort and solace in watching and reading about violence and acts of aggression. He briskly walks past his full-scale mirror without looking at his own reflection to avoid embarrassment, he hates the way he looks, he has no confidence in his appearance and avoiding his own reflection helps tremendously with his self-esteem. Sliding his feet into his plain navy slippers and escorts himself out of his bedroom and makes his way down a long corridor adorned with a grey oak floorboard.

Walking past two empty bedrooms, he walks into an open area that contains a two-seater black leather couch facing a massive 65-inch TV, with two adjacent black leather armchairs on either side which are separated by a dark grey fluffy rug and a glass coffee table. On his left-hand side is a dining table, completely made of glass, and has six identical glass chairs neatly tucked underneath.

Also, beneath an archway beside the dining table is the kitchen, where Derek routinely brings himself to first thing every morning as he puts the kettle on and prepares himself a cup of coffee. Derek lives in a beautiful three-bedroom, immaculately clean apartment in Manhattan. It’s abnormally large for a single man with no children, but Derek has lived a very lonely lifestyle and has unintentionally isolated himself from society over the years and felt the need to purchase a larger apartment because he felt it would be less embarrassing than living in a one-bedroom apartment by himself.

As the kettle is boiling, he prepares himself two slices of toast, his movements in the kitchen are robot-like, not due to lethargy or tiredness, but just through a repetitive routine of the same regime every day. Grabbing his coffee and toast, which are placed on a small grey plate, he makes his way out of the kitchen and walks to his two-seater couch facing his TV, still in his pyjamas, he places his coffee and toast on the coffee table and turns on the TV. Over the years Derek has indulged in violent, grotesque movies or TV shows and is especially fond of The Walking Dead, he usually watches three episodes before getting ready for work. Back in the bedroom he disrobes and has a shower, then he dresses in his typical working day attire.

An oversized short-sleeved shirt, with yellow and white stripes from top to bottom, grey-coloured trousers, and brown shoes. He grabs a comb and begins to compulsively brush his short brown hair forward, leaving it flat on his forehead to minimise its size and save himself some time by refusing to style his hair in any fashionable way. His morning routines just seem so unexciting and consist of no energy or enthusiasm whatsoever. His movements are boring and depressing, a man giving off the impression he is fed up with how his life is turning out.

Before he leaves his overcompensating three-bedroom apartment he grabs his keys to the apartment, his briefcase, and a grey bomber jacket to match the trousers. Exiting his apartment he walks down the corridor towards the elevator, he gestures his head as a hello to any passing residents in the hall but does not stop to engage in any conversation because it makes him uncomfortable.

He rides the elevator to the bottom floor and departs swiftly, after coming down five stories from his apartment he briskly walks through the lobby unencumbered and exits the apartment block to be greeted by a beautiful and quiet street. Only the sound of an autumn breeze blowing the leaves along the road can be heard. As he makes his commute to the train station, he inserts his earphones and resumes his audiobook, which is the Game of Thrones collection by George R. R. Martin and is narrated by British veteran, Roy Dotrice.

As he gets closer to the train station, the area progressively becomes more and more hostile and unpleasant. Head down, he walks past rubbish, graffiti, and the homeless, who are persistently looking for either money, drugs, or both. The contrast between the apartment blocks where he lives and the train station is unbelievable, and the commute on the train is no different. He runs across the street and joins a group of local train commuters as they enter the train station.

Derek works for the finance department for a very successful construction company on 42nd street, which usually takes 40 minutes by train to get to. Since there is no construction on Sundays, he doesn’t need to be at work until 13:00 on a Monday but needs to be in early for the rest of the week. Embarking on the train he sits himself down and tries to take up as little room as possible. He places his briefcase on his lap, keeps his legs and feet firmly together, and keeps his elbows tucked into his ribs, being as unobtrusive as possible by making little to no noise and not being ostentatious. He has witnessed enough violence and unsociable characters on this train journey and knows better than to get involved.

But over the years, the commute on the train has always been a horrible experience. The anti-social behaviour that train commuters have experienced has been horrendous and tiresome, which has transformed Derek into the non-existent train rider he is. On this particular afternoon, he observes a group of youths getting on his carriage on the opposite end. A group of four young men, no more than 30 years of age, but are dressed like they’re in their early adolescence.

Each individual is dressed in either a grey or black tracksuit, zip-up hoodie, and dirty runners. Some of them have their hoods up and have a beanie hat on underneath. They appear to be dressed as if they’re on their way to a gym to do a workout, but based on their dishevelled and skinny physiques, they look like they’ve never worked out or lifted a dumbbell in their lives. One individual, with a shaved head and a white zip-up hoodie sits down, he slams a pack of 24 cans of Blue Ribbon on the floor and passes a can to each of his other three companions, who prefer to stand around the box of alcohol.

While this occurs the left side of Derek’s face begins to twitch uncontrollably, his left eye blinks rapidly and the muscles in his cheekbone begin to spasm. His scalp begins to itch with stress, and he proceeds to scratch it coarsely. Intrusive flashbacks of him being bullied in school begin to flood his mind. His left wrist begins to pulsate again with pain from when another student in his school was bullying him and broke it. His wrist occasionally inflames and causes him pain under stress. His excessive scratching has caused some grotesque lacerations on his scalp. He begins to sweat profusely and feels nauseated as memories of his childhood bullies harass and torment him.

Ever since Derek graduated from school, he has lived with post-traumatic stress from the severe bullying that he encountered from other students. Whenever he is in the presence of any bullies, or anyone that gives off a bullying demeanour`, these nervous tics involuntary take control over him. He becomes emotionally reactive, irritated, and extremely hypervigilant. He just wishes he could cleanse the world of bullies and cure his debilitating symptoms. The group of misfits continue to crack open a can each and cheer to each other as they drink excessively.

Becoming more and more boisterous, loud, and disrupting to people trying to enter or get off the train. They continue to drink and crumple up empty cans which are thrown onto the floor of the train, each one appears to be completely oblivious to the other passengers onboard. It’s astounding how little they care about the other commuters sitting on the same carriage, women, and children, they behave as if they’re the only ones on the train.

Becoming louder and louder with each sip of alcohol, they become more disruptive and aggressive towards others. But surprisingly, each passenger pretends that these eccentrics aren’t there. Not only does Derek avoid eye contact with these hooligans, but he won’t even turn his head in their direction. As does every other passenger on the train. Over the years Derek has noticed that everybody does their absolute best to avoid any confrontation or argument, no matter what the circumstances are. Nobody comments, reacts, or seeks justice.

Everybody just simply tries to ignore what is going on around them, pretend nothing is happening, and just try to continue their day without any disruption; Derek is the prime example. As these individuals become more intoxicated, they try to cause arguments by tripping passengers as they come and go, Derek grows more and more anxious as he nervously grasps his briefcase, eager to disembark the train. He tries to concentrate his hearing on the audio book, but he can’t help but miss what’s being said as the noise of these youths drown out the narration. He clenches his jaw and lets out a depressing sigh about this commute, he quickly stands himself up with a defeated and exhausted posture and springs himself towards the door, keeping his eyes low, as the train finally arrives at his stop.

The doors open and he darts off through the doors and immediately loosens his shirt collar to allow himself to breathe more freely. Inaudible convulsions of sorrow, irrepressible shaking, heart palpations, and self-pity begin to hijack his whole body. He winces with the pain in his left hand and his scalp. He takes the anti-inflammatories from his briefcase and consumes another two. He rubs his fingers through his hair to check for any blood. But none this time.

While standing on the platform he takes deep breaths, inhaling through his nose deeply, and exhaling out through his mouth. He puts himself into a deep mediation and utilises his visualisation techniques to alleviate his stress. He always visualises bullies suffering a horrific and gruesome death, either by his hand or by a tragic accident. These thoughts generally help him with his post-traumatic stress disorder and mitigate his symptoms.

Once the doors to the train close and slowly move off, Derek exhales a sigh of relief. He begins to descend the stairs of the station and smiles that he is fortunate enough that his workplace is right beside it. He scans his communal card to grant him access through the turnstile, he manoeuvres himself through a constellation of railings where people lock their bikes. Then he finds himself standing on a kerb at the edge of a road, perceiving his workplace, a massive white building with a glass roof, a huge carpark, which is surrounded by a green hedge. He usually cuts through his workplace carpark to get to the front door of the building.

The workplace carpark is a huge area, accommodating all the staff members from various departments. To enter the building, he walks through a rotating glass door where he is welcomed by a long reception desk, which is occupied by two blonde female receptionists, who never look up. On either side of the receptionists’ desk are turnstiles. The turnstiles to the right are for people entering the building and the left is for people leaving the building.

Habitually, Derek has got into the routine of not taking out his work badge and scanning through the turnstiles, they used to have to scan in their work ID to be granted access to the building, but over the last couple of weeks, they have been faulty, so the security department has left them unlocked while the IT have been trying repair this issue. Derek freely pushes through the turnstiles and enters through the main lobby of the building, which opens up into this fantastic piece of architecture.

The building is wide, and oval shaped, as it reaches a climax of 10 stories high with a different department on each floor. There is a big spacious open floor on the ground level and glass ceiling on top, but between them, there are multiple floors connected by a spiralling staircase at the end of the building, towards which Derek advances without deviation. Behind the staircase, there are two elevators, the finance department is on the sixth floor. As the lift ascends, he removes his earphones and tucks them away nicely in his jacket pocket. The elevator doors open and Derek steps onto a carpeted walkway that travels around the entire floor.

On the left-hand side of this walkway, is a balcony protected by a waist high glass panel that goes around the whole oval shape structure of the floor and every other floor. As he walks down the balcony there are multiple office doors to his right and on his left is the glass panel which is overlooking the wide-open bottom floor. He reaches his department door which is identified by a small silver plaque which has ‘Finance Department’ inscribed in small black letters. He slams the door open, the door scraping along the red carpeted floor as it opens. He immediately hears the pleasant voice of Audrey to his right-hand side as he enters.

‘Good afternoon, Derek, how was your weekend?’ She asks with a heart-warming smile and a friendly wave as she sits causally behind her desk.

‘Hi Audrey,’ Derek says, pleased to see her.

‘My weekend was quiet, nothing worth mentioning, how was yours?’ He asks, showing small embarrassment by how uneventful and boring his weekend was, but he listens attentively to her answer.

‘Uneventful, just went out with some friends on Saturday night, that’s about it,’ Audrey responds just before she answers the ringing phone at her desk. ‘Hello, finance department, Audrey speaking,’ she answers with excellent phone etiquette. Audrey is a very beautiful and unbelievably nice girl, long brown hair which correlates nicely with her captivating brown eyes and her natural tanned skin. She’s short in stature, standing at about 5’4 but is a big advocate of powerlifting and has the legs and shoulders to show it. She is usually dressed in a black blazer, white blouse, black slacks, and heels.

Audrey is the assistant of the Head of Finance, and is known as the face of the department, she always greets people politely with a friendly hello, and a smile. As Derek progresses, he reaches a T-junction, to his left, is a long corridor which is inhabited by one office hidden on the left-hand side. You wouldn’t see this office until you walked down the corridor. This office is occupied by Desmond Buckley, the head of the finance department. To his right, a small corridor, which leads to clusters of cubicles which are populated by the rest of the finance department, and Derek’s work colleagues.

Looking down the corridor, the room looks dim and eerily silent, a darkness glooms over the cubicles. Derek’s face grimaces as the pain in his left wrist begins to throb and his scalp starts to itch. He closes his eyes and begins his visualisation techniques.

Chapter Two

Derek walks past Audrey’s desk and makes his way down towards his own cubicle. An isle way bestows a clear walking path through multiple cubicle stations. For the finance department to operate at full efficiency they need a compliment of 11 staff members. Today, and most other days, they only have 6. Over the last several weeks most staff members have handed in the resignation letters and left the company. The few remaining are in the process of looking for other employment but have been unsuccessful and are remaining to work in Desmond’s finance department just to pay their bills and keep food on their tables.

With their spare time their filling out application forms, submitting resumes, and doing interviews for other companies. ‘Hey Louise, did you hear back from that interview you done last week?’ Nigel asks with intrigue.

‘Yeah, I was unsuccessful, again,’ Louise responds with an exhausted huff.

‘Unlucky, look don’t let yourself get discouraged, keep looking, you’ll get something eventually, we all will,’ Nigel responds with encouragement.

‘What about yourself, Nigel? Any luck on any jobs?’ Grace asks invading on the conversation.

Nigel exhales sharply, ‘I received two rejection emails over the weekend, saying I wasn’t a suitable candidate.’

‘That’s not so bad, I was told over the weekend I didn’t possess enough knowledge and experience for the job I applied for,’ Grace retorts with a sense of humour. Derek continues to progress down the aisle, he walks past multiple empty chairs and unoccupied stations and is casually greeted with friendly and fatigued ‘hellos’ by the few staff members that are already there. Upon reaching his own cubicle he drops his briefcase to the floor, aghast and shocked with the amount of paperwork stacked up on his desk waiting for his arrival. His stomach turns and he rubs his forehead with the palm of his hand in distress.

‘Yeah, sorry buddy, it looks like forced overtime again for us,’ Nigel says depressingly.

Derek draws his attention towards Nigel, who sits at a cubicle overlooking his own. He sees an exhausted figure of a man. Short premature grey hair pushed to one side, a white shirt with short sleeves which looks like it hasn’t been ironed in months, and a pink tie. ‘I don’t get it,’ Derek responds in bewilderment. ‘I thought there was no construction on yesterday, so what the hell is all this?’ Derek asks while gesturing his hands to all the paperwork on his desk.

‘It’s ridiculous is what it is,’ yells Louise from across the room. Wearing a white shirt with blue polka-dots, very curly blonde hair, and thick dark rimmed glasses. ‘This is supposed to be our quiet day. Imagine what the rest of our week is going to be like?’ She verbalises with an anger in her voice. Derek shakes his head in incredulity with his hands placed furiously on his hips. He’s almost afraid to sit down and get started, so he quickly scans the room to identify his other co-workers; Ron, Grace, and Robert which all appear to be under the same workload and stress. Each one of them has their heads buried in their own paperwork and is yet to look up and acknowledge the arrival of their associate. Eventually, after a few moments of astonishment and reluctance, Derek bends down to pick up his briefcase, he swiftly tucks it in against the wall, sits at his desk and turns on his computer.

As he logs onto his desktop, he grabs the first piece of paperwork at the top of the pile, opens it up and grabs a pen. Looking at his computer screen he freezes with confusion as he notices a new icon on his desktop, a ‘bathroom request’ button. ‘Does anyone else have this bathroom request icon on their computer screen?’ Derek asks the room.

‘You’re not going to believe this,’ Robert answers with slight anger in his voice while he pivots in his seat towards Derek. ‘Because we’re so understaffed and have so much work to do, Desmond wants to monitor our bathroom breaks, so you have to request to use the bathroom.’

‘You are joking me,’ Derek replies in disbelief.

‘No, I’m serious, I’ve been refused already,’ Robert answers.

‘So have I,’ Louise yells.

‘Can he legally do that?’ Derek asks.

‘Audrey says he can,’ Robert responds in fatigue, spinning back around in his chair towards his computer.

‘Fuck this,’ Derek quietly says to himself. His wrist and temper starting to flare up.

As the hours slowly tick on, each staff member grows more and more tired, backs are starting to ache from sitting down all day, and hands are starting to cramp due to so much writing. Derek drops his pen and winces in pain as he sits back in his chair and rolls his wrist in circular motions, trying to loosen it up and attempt to get some range of motion in the joint. As he does, he can’t help but notice Robert sitting at his desk, elbows on the table, and his face buried into the palm of his hands.

‘Hey Rob, you ok?’ Derek asks with genuine concern. Robert removes his hands from his face and lets out a gasp of air, as if he was holding his breath.

‘Yeah Derek, I’m good, I just can’t help but think that I was supposed to be on annual leave this week, I was supposed to take my two boys to Disneyland, but my leave was refused by Desmond.’

‘Refused?’ Derek yelps with a confounded look on his face.

‘No, surely he can’t refuse your annual leave?’ Louise interjects, lifting her head out of her own paperwork and peeping over her cubicle screen. ‘You must have really given late notice?’ She asks.

‘No, not at all, I requested it almost three months ago,’ Robert replies as he holds up three fingers, really embellishing the amount of notice he gave. ‘Apparently we’re too short staffed to be taking annual leave during this time.’

‘That’s a load of—’ Louise’s sentenced is cut off by the door of the finance department opening and closing loudly, and the voice of Desmond greeting Audrey is heard. The whole room falls silent, and all heads are now looking up and peering down the corridor to see Desmond Buckley, the money hungry, greedy head of department responsible for all this distress.

Desmond steps into the corridor and into the view of the whole department, he stands as a small figure in height, but very heavy set, borderline obese. A black suit and white shirt which barely fits over his protruding stomach. Clean shaven, bald, and has oily looking skin which makes him more repulsive. His cheeks are red with exertion, and his eyebrows are constantly furrowed. A man who use’s bullying, aggression, and intimidation as a form of management. He slowly turns his head and glances at Derek and Robert with piercing eyes but makes no attempt to say hello or greet anybody else other than Audrey.

Desmond then pivots on the spot and proceeds towards his own office at the other end of the corridor, which he enters without saying a word to any of us. The rest of the department then sit back in their chairs and look at each other while shaking their heads in a disapproving manner. Finally, Grace breaks the silence, ‘What an ignorant pig,’ she says in a loud whisper, which brings a few smiles to the rest of the team and even a chuckle from Robert.

‘But surely Desmond can’t legally refuse your annual leave,’ Nigel says to Robert, continuing their conversation.

‘It’s not your fault we’re short staffed,’ he says quietly, while looking back down the corridor to make sure neither Audrey nor Desmond is within ear shot.

‘No, it isn’t, and I had to cancel our holiday as well, which was non-refundable.’ Rob cries.

‘But what can I do? I’ve been looking for work elsewhere for months, but I’ve been working in finance for so many years I’m not qualified to work anywhere else, I’ve sent out hundreds of applications to other companies, and have heard nothing back,’ he says dishearteningly, he then turns his body back towards his computer and continues to work. Usually, Derek is a very quiet guy, who likes to bite his tongue, keep to himself and just dig his heels in get the work done. But lately, he’s starting to become quite infuriated with the mistreatment of staff in this department.

Annual leave being refused, staff being overworked beyond their contracted hours, short staffed, no communication between management, and no effort being made to even retain staff. Derek highlights the hours the staff have done over the last two months and decides to print them. Written documentation he’s going to present to Desmond as proof of breaching staff members contracts.

While that’s printing, he looks up the standard operating procedures about the minimum number of staff required to operate a department, which highlights that a team of 11 people are needed to run a department, while Desmond only employs 6. Once all the documentation is printed, he grabs them from the printer and stands up rapidly. ‘I’m done with this,’ he says out loud, capturing the attention of everyone else around him.

He strides down the corridor, with all the relevant paperwork in his hand to help get his point across. The other five members of finance look at Derek as their eyes follow him out of the room and down the corridor, utterly dumbfounded, with their jaws nearly on the floor and their eyes popping out of their heads. Derek marches past Audrey without looking at her or saying a word, his heart is racing and is filled with adrenaline, this behaviour is completely out of his comfort zone and uncharacteristic, but he is committed.

‘Derek, where are you going? Wait hold on a minute, you can’t just go in there,’ Audrey shouts from behind, which is ignored as Derek continues this endeavour. He knocks on the door precipitously three times, a courtesy knock, but he does not wait for any reply or invitation from Desmond, he opens the door immediately after knocking and invites himself in. Upon entering, he closes the door behind him and perceives Desmond sitting on a comfortable black leather office chair behind a brown mahogany desk. Desmond’s attention is quickly pulled away from his computer screen and