by LM Therrien
(373 words)
You’re in the mood for a movie on your new TV. Packaging is everywhere but the ultra precision color screen begs for that heartfelt drama—We Blitz On Sundays, perfect. It washes the room in images. Two hours pass, but all that close up cheering draws your eye to the smudges along the bottom. You wipe them off with bulk-sized cleaner.
But the fingerprints are still there—on the inside. You wonder how actual people are still assembling TVs nowadays, let alone with greasy hands. Nothing helps.
Change channels. Maybe a show about crocodiles. Insects swarming over their snouts. When it ends you notice all the buzzing flies. You spray more cleaner but they bounce around untouched. Quicker this time, you realize they’re trapped.
It’s getting irritating. You find a baking show which leaves lemon custard streaked in the upper corner.
One channel over is a jet ski, police chase. Water droplets dot the screen. Now you’re pissed. TVs can not get wet.
You shout and spray and wipe, but cleaning can’t touch it, so you smile in earnest and decide to get real filthy.
The porn runs longer than intended. By the end you scowl at the mess and turn it off. The black screen makes it worse, too many crusted smears, so you power it back on and switch to public broadcasting.
You leave the house; retreat to someplace real but still scripted. A diner perhaps. When you come back those upbeat infomercials are gone, leaving sun-curled sale stickers along the edges. The mood shifts.
There’s a true crime mystery now. Dark closets are interspersed with knife blades catching light. The images are rapid, but the lurking is always just behind a sliver of light. It sends a shiver down your spine, and you fumble for the remote, afraid of what murder will leave.
But just then the narrator mentions the many cleaning methods that make a space suspiciously sterile. Bleach, rubber gloves, hydrogen peroxide, DNA killers. Right there, inside your screen. Timing is pertinent. Power off. Mercifully, the screen is clean. Not a drop of residue. Not so much as a fly’s wing. Be proud of yourself and walk away. Never mind the lurking that chills you as you leave.
END
LM Therrien loves to adventure in the dense forests of the Pacific Northwest with their family during the day and sneak off to a small desk to craft stories late at night. She’s thrilled to be writing horror and exploring the truths we sometimes find in these spooky little stories. You can find her on Twitter @lm_therrien.