Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's EJ, writer and creator here at Fast
Food Horror. This week's installment is entitled as Seen on TV.
In truth, I didn't mean to write what I did.
I had an idea about a story and about a guy.
I had an idea where I wanted to go with
it and how I wanted to end. But when everything
was finished, I ended up with, well what you're about
to listen to? Basically my homage to Dante's Inferno. One
more block, Just one more block, and I'll be home.
Never thought I'd be thankful to be back in that
rat trap, to my lousy one room apartment behind sales
a dive bar if there ever was one, pushing my
only piece of good luck in the last eight months,
uphill for nine blocks and out of date projection screen
TV from the mid eighties, I found abandoned on the curb.
Abandoned more like left for trash. But as they say,
one man's trash is another man's treasure. I only hope
it works. I navigated it down the alley, past the
ripe dumpsters, towards my apartment's entrance. I had a modern
TV only a few weeks ago, but had to sell
it to pay a bookie, Why don't I watch shows
on my cell phone, you ask, Yeah, my cell phone
is so basic it doesn't have that feature. I can
text and make calls, that is when well, when the
bill has been paid on time. After a few good heaves,
I had my new treasure into the apartment and plugged
it in, hoping it had an internal antenna for local
channels and I could somehow connect my firestick to it
through whatever I'm a guy or magic I can muster.
I found the remote control to the TV duct taped
to the rear of the console. It was one of
those original ones, so big you had to use two
hands to hold it, with the words Vincent printed in
eighties block itallic font across its top. Working my wiring skill,
I hit the power button on the remote and the
scream turned electric blue before fading to black, and the
word Dante in dark red appeared, filling the entire screen.
I didn't remember a Dante brand in the eighties, but
that didn't matter much as the menus screen appeared and
I found three sixteen bit icons an antenna icon I
presumed for local channels in one box. In the next box,
I had two empty wires next to a camera and
what I thought was a VCR and what looked like
an icon that represented flames in the last box. I
clicked on the antenna box first. Sure enough I got
the local channels, plus a few odd PPS ones that
I would never watch, and three in Espanol. I clicked
on the second box with the wires and the VCR
camera icon. Sure enough, there was my firestick, and thanks
to sales open Wi Fi, I could access them free
movie apps. My luck was changing. I clicked on the
third box, the one with the fire icon. Nine boxes
appeared on the screen, with a number on each one
through nine. I clicked on one. The screen went black,
and at first I thought the power went out on
the old set, But then the light came up on
the screen slowly, just ever so slightly, to reveal a
panoramic shot of a dimly lit cavernous room with seemingly
no end. The camera slowly zoomed closer to reveal countless
thousands walking aimlessly in the dim light. Closer the camera
zoomed on the people wandering in the dark. I saw
their clothes were in tatters, faces gray blue from the dirt,
and the chill, the colds so obviously in the air
by the puffs of white on each exhile. Tears streaked
down their faces, none seeing the other, none aware of
the other's existence. Their moaning, crying and calls for help
echoed off unseen walls as they searched aimlessly in the
darkness for escape. I changed the channel to number two.
The screen was immediately filled with a sea of waves
crashing about on a night sky backdrop. Winds howled as
white cap upon white cap smashed into each other, erupting
in spray and noise. Caught in the action were people
floating in the inky, violent waters as far as the
eye could see, men and women struggling to stay afloat,
gasping for breath before the next wave crashed. Seconds later,
I flipped the channel to three. A gray, frigid tundra
scene filled the screen and slowly panned the dark, gray
winter sky and snow blowing across the landscape, before stopping
at a lake. As the camera zoomed in, I could
see it wasn't water as much as a lake of
dark brown and black slush, ice and snow floating on
top the condition of water. Just before freezing, not yet
solid and still liquid, the slush undulating due to the
many peoples trying to reach the banks of a lake
as they struggled, faces blue due to its icy temperatures,
hair a collection of frost and ice, eyes unblinking, frozen
open as they tried to make their escape. The camera
continued panning to the bank of the lake, where a
gigantic three headed dog of whole black paced along its perimeter,
and as one of those frozen people crawled out of
the slush, it grasped their body in one of its
jaws and threw them back in the lake. What kind
of sadistic rabbit hole of channels did I find myself?
I flipped past four than five and on to six.
I thought the speakers were going to break due to
the screams that filled the air and the roar of fire.
The screen was filled with red and yellow hues, and
I found myself horrified watching people screaming, running frantically about
a small room that was engulfed in flames. I flipped
right to nine, and there I was me on the screen,
sitting there watching the same TV, wearing the clothes I
am now. It was like having an out of body experience,
watching myself in a dark void of room. I was
chained to the chair multiple heavy chains. The me on
the TV, ME facing the screen. The camera zoomed onto
the screen. I was watching TV me, and it was
me on the screen of the TV. I watched as
ME made those first bets, Me make those next few
bad bets, me making some other bad bets with the
wrong kind of people because I had a hot tip
that the regular sports books wouldn't cover, me dipping into
my furrow one K to cover those bets, me borrowing
from my savings the wife would never know. Me then
using my kid's college fund she could never know, to
make another bet that could not lose. To cover the money,
I took out of the four one K and the
savings and replace the college fund and still have some
left over so the wife would never know. And well,
there I was watching myself in the bar, watching the
team I bet on lose in historic fashion, well at
least from my perspective. Everyone else knew they were going
to lose. And I watched my face t V ME
as I realized I lost the four one K, the
college fund and savings and might should would have to
tell my wife. The screen then flashed to the parking
lot outside the bar, where drunk me was approached by
two large linebacker types sent by the wrong people I
bet with to remind me. I owed them a lot
and so I wouldn't forget. Gave me a reminder that
would take about six to eight weeks to heal. I
watched as the TV me chained to the chair flinched
and cringed and cried out with every punch, every kick,
and each stomp that they landed to the other me.
TV me was watching, both reliving the pain and the agony,
and since I couldn't very well drive a stick shift
with a broken arm, those two massive walking pieces of
granite drove away with my beloved nineteen sixty eight Camaro,
my Rolex, my wedding band, while I laid helplessly on
the wet pavement in a growing puddle of my own blood.
The TV then flashed my home the TV chain me
was watching. I watched as the door to my home
first open, splintering at the frame, and those very same
behemoths that beat the snot out of me and broke
my arm scared the hell out of my wife yelling
and screaming, telling her why they were there and looking
for me, before breaking some pictures a chair, flipping a
dining room table, and shattering her favorite face her grandmother
gave her before she passed. I could hear my children
cry somewhere else in the house, I stared as tv
ME watched, both of us now crying as she checked
on her phone the accounts, learning the truth of how
much I was in debt as she cried and then
cursed me out and later locking me out, locking me
out of the bank accounts, our home, our kids, and
the life she and I had built together, then packing
up and leaving for her mother's five states away. The
screen continued to flip, showing memory after memory, stumble and
fall after fall and stumble, losing my job, the bank
for closing my home, the divorce being finalized, losing custody
of my kids, not even getting visitation rites since my
gambling had put the family in obvious danger. Vision after
vision of my children without me asking for Dad, my
wife crying herself to sleep, my friends shaking their heads
in the sadness of it all. My whole world up ended.
I watched as TV ME shook with heaving cries, and
after TV me stopped crying and I stopped crying, and
the other tea was able to stand up from the beating.
I saw the TV means look up both of them,
and they both turned to face the unseen camera, so
that now I was looking at ME and ME was
looking at I, and the TV means whimpered, make it stop,
you can still, make it stop, and then echoing from
the TV on the TV, from the TV, and then
throughout the room a hideous laughter. H