When the machine came back up, the login screen was crisp. His desktop wallpaper—a photo of a misty forest—looked sharper. He opened the audio plugin installer. It ran in three seconds.

He remembered installing it. Two years ago, after a late-night YouTube spiral of dark web horror stories. A friend had said, “Macs don’t need antivirus.” But the friend wasn’t a cybersecurity expert. Avast, however, had a very clean website. Green checkmarks. Happy families. “Download Free.”

He had dragged the Avast icon to the Trash. A classic Mac move. Simple. Clean. The system had beeped at him—a sharp, scolding thunk —and a popup materialized: “This item is critical for Avast to function. Removing it may cause system instability.”

He leaned back. The chamomile tea was cold. But the air around the computer felt lighter, as if an electric ghost had finally been let out.

May. Not will. May.

Real silence. No fan whirring. No background scan ticking. Just the clean, quiet hum of the iMac doing absolutely nothing except waiting for him.