Pt 1- https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/14pufzh/bright_access_pt_1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
After that, the little TV was a daily part of my life.
I would get home from school and rush to Grandma’s so I could find the show on the channel between 7 and 8. It didn’t always work, and sometimes I had to content myself with other shows, but I started to notice that it didn’t really have a set time that it came on. Most times, I found it on between two thirty and three, but I’ve also watched it at four, seven, eight, nine, and even once at eleven o’clock at night. The time didn’t seem to be as important as the act of looking for the show, though I never understood that as a kid.
No matter when I found it, Ms. Mary was there to greet me and tell me how much she’d missed me. Wherever Thomas was, he had apparently decided to stay, because the smiling woman seemed to have taken over the show. There was always a story, plenty of songs, and sometimes letters that they read on the show. Children would send letters to Ms. Mary and talk about how neat the show was and how they wanted to learn more about The Bright. Ms. Mary would always tell them to “look for the Bright inside themselves and invite it into their homes and communities” and then there would be a song or a dance about following the Bright or Believing in the Bright.
The more I watched, the more I kind of wanted to know more about The Bright.
I knew it was blasphemous, but sometimes I would even pray for The Bright to come into my home so that maybe I could meet Ms. Mary.
It all came to a head one day when I came home, took my snack from Grandma, and went into the den to watch the tv. I didn’t even have to adjust anymore. I never changed the channel, I never moved the aerials, and as the set came on, I heard the slightly distorted theme song play as the show began. The title card appeared between two clouds, and then the scene transitioned to the country store. Ms. Mary was looking up, watching as the camera zoomed in, and her eyes seemed to be locked on mine.
This had seemed creepy when Thomas did it, but when Ms. Mary did it, it filled me with joy and longing I had never known before that day when she first appeared.
“It’s you again, I’m so glad you came to visit me,” and then she surprised me by saying my name.
I was speechless. Shows often talked to the audience, even sometimes pretended they could see you, but Ms. Mary had just said my actual name. I gaped at her as she continued to smile back at me, and when she laughed, I felt a little better.
“Don’t look so surprised. I know your name, I’ve always known it. You are very special to me, and the Bright. So special, that I have broken the rules to try and reach you. The Bright doesn’t usually let us do this, but I think you might be ready to come visit, just like I came to visit the Bright.”
I leaned in close, my nose almost touching the tv screen, and when she leaned in too, I almost thought she might reach out of the set and scoop me up.
“Let me tell you all about it in today’s story of a woman who found her way to the light.”
The scene changed and suddenly there was a puppet that looked a lot like Ms. Mary. She was standing in front of a drawing of a house and I thought that even though it was crudely drawn, the house looked familiar. The Ms. Mary puppet looked sad as she walked around in front of the house, and as another puppet walked on screen, he looked sad too.
The puppet was tall with salt and pepper hair and a beard.
The puppet wore round glasses and had a mole on his left cheek.
The puppet looked familiar, but I couldn’t yet place him.
“Mary felt unfulfilled. She had a husband and a home and a baby on the way, but Mary felt as if her life had no meaning.”
The husband puppet put an arm around Mary, hugging her before waving and leaving her in front of the house.
“Her husband was often gone for work and Mary was left alone with her thoughts. She didn’t really feel important, like a housekeeper more than anything, and as she cleaned and cooked, The Bright saw her despair and wanted to help.”
The Mary puppet looked behind her and suddenly there was a bright light in the sky.
It transitioned then to a television in her house and showed her sitting on the couch and watching a program. “The Bright sent Mary a show and told her all about how she could be happy. It told her people were waiting for her, people who would give her purpose, and all she had to do was come to them.”
The Bright on the little tv that Mary watched was much smaller but it blinked like a Christmas light as she watched it. She turned the tv off suddenly though, stroking her belly as she thought about things. She was clearly very confused about what to do, and the longer I watched, the more I started to wonder if this episode was really for me.
“Mary didn’t think she could leave before her baby was born, and she felt sad that she would leave her husband in the state he was in. He was sad and didn’t even know it, just like Mary had been. She tried to tell him about the program,”
Sure enough, the husband puppet came back and Mary tried to talk to him. The husband puppet listened, but eventually, he just shook his head and crossed his arms. He turned away from her, walking out of the shot as he left.
“But he wouldn’t listen. He was stubborn and felt that what she was saying was wrong. He clung to the God of his father, of his community, and he told her not to be so easily swayed. Mary thought that maybe she had been wrong, and stopped letting The Bright into her home and into her heart.”
The scene changed and suddenly the Mary puppet had a baby in her arms.
“She gave birth to her baby, and for a while, everything was okay. Her husband was around more often, and she didn’t feel so alone. She didn’t need the tv show or The Bright and thought that she could make it just fine on her own. Mary didn’t know, however, how wrong she was.”
The husband puppet came into view and hugged Mary while the narrator was telling the story. The two looked happy, and they both looked at the baby lovingly. Mary rocked the baby and gave it a little bottle, but eventually, the husband puppet left again with a wave of his hand.
“But eventually, her husband had to return to work, and Mary was left alone again.”
The Mary puppet sat on the couch, looking sad as she cared for the baby.
“She felt alone and overwhelmed by the new baby, and as the sadness began to creep in again, she rediscovered her old show. She watched it all the time, at least when her husband wasn’t around. She started praying to The Bright and asking it to come into her home, her neighborhood, and her heart. She became a convert but was unsure of how to continue. How do you worship with no church? How do you bask in the glow with no Bright? Mary didn’t know, but The Bright did. Mary needed to go to the farm where all things were possible. She needed to visit the Wonder Barn, see the Bright Chapel, and bask in The Bright for herself.”
Mary got up to go, but her husband came back and now he seemed mean. He pushed Mary down, taking the baby with him and locking her behind a door. The puppet sat down, her head against her knees, and appeared to cry.
“But Mary’s husband didn’t believe, and when she told him that she was going to The Bright Farm to be with her own kind, he took the baby from her and locked her in a bedroom. He thought that if she were separated from the show, she would come back to her senses. He didn’t realize that The Bright was inside her and that it would show her the way.”
All at once, The Bright was inside the room. A window appeared and the puppet jumped from it and left the room, the Bright close behind her. She walked and walked, but eventually, she came to the farm and lots of other smiling puppets came to greet her. They hugged her and celebrated her arrival and all of them worshiped the Bright together.
“Mary escaped, and after a long journey, she found her way to Bright Farm. She met with Brother Thomas and the others who lived there and they had fellowship and worshiped The Bright together. Mary was sad to leave her baby, but she knew that if she served The Bright, then one day her child would be returned to her.”
The puppet segment ended, and Ms. Mary was back. She was staring much too intently at the screen, her smile looking raw as spread from ear to ear. I wondered then if she ever stopped smiling, but I had my answer when I looked into her eyes. Her eyes didn’t look sad like the puppets had. Her eyes looked crazy, and as I watched, I saw that they weren’t as focused on me as I had thought.
They were focused over my shoulder, and I soon learned why.
“Hello, husband. Are you ready to embrace The Bright? Are you ready to return my child to me? It isn’t too late. You can still join me on the farm. You can still bask in The Bright.”
I heard a noise, a soft negation from paralyzed lips, and turned to see my dad standing in the entrance to the den. He had the big leather bag in his hand that he often used when he went to see his four-legged patients, and it made a heavy thump as it hit the floor. He stared at the woman for a long moment, and when he moved, it was like watching someone blink forward. He flipped the little table that the tv was on, and when it hit the ground, something inside it broke. The screen went dark, the outer housing cracked. The image of the smiling woman was frozen there for several seconds before the static took it away.
Grandma came in, asking what was wrong, and he started yelling at her. He said a lot of things I didn’t understand then. He asked her how she could let me watch the same filth that had taken my mother. How could she be so careless as to let it pollute me as well? He yelled a lot, and most of it was scary, but not as scary as when he started to cry. He fell to his knees in front of her, and suddenly he was loosing these hopeless, bellowing cries of pain. He wrapped his arms around her knees, crying like a giant child who’s lost something dear to him, and Grandma just sank to her knees too as she patted his back and made soothing noises. I came to hug him too, wanting my Dad to stop crying, and when he pulled me into his arms, I felt his tears on my shirt as he hugged me to him.
I wouldn’t think about that show again for many years, and by then my Dad was beyond tears.
He died when I was a senior in Highschool. I found him in his bed one morning, splayed out and staring at the ceiling. He was clutching his chest, his face a mask of fear, and I called the paramedics right away. There was nothing they could do, he had been dead for hours, and I buried him long before I was ready to lose him.
After the funeral, Grandma asked me to come over so she could tell me some things that Dad hadn’t wanted me to know.
She sat on the front porch so she could smoke, something I had never seen her do, but something she needed to do to get through this.
“Your mother isn’t dead. She fell in with a weird cult before you were born and, despite your Dad’s best efforts, he couldn’t stop her from going to see them. What he could do, though, was take you away from her and lock her in a bedroom in the hopes she would get over it. He hoped she would, he really loved your mom, but when he found that she had gone out a window to be with them, it broke his heart. He told you that she died so you wouldn’t go looking for her. He was afraid that you might get mixed up with this cult too, and then he’d have lost both of you.”
“Why tell me then?” I asked, the wind making the wind chimes jangle as we sat on the porch and felt the February cold sink into us.
“Because you have a right to know. Your father’s death was a surprise to everyone, including him, and I didn’t want to die without telling you. The truth may not set you free, but it’s your truth to have, and keeping it from you won’t make it any easier. Here,” she said, taking something out of her shirt pocket and handing it to me, “It’s the only picture of your mother I could find. It’s a little old, nineteen years I suppose, but it’s the only one I have. She’s pregnant with you in it, you can see the little…what? What’s wrong, hunny? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Grandma was right, I had seen a ghost.
The woman staring back at me in the picture was someone I hadn’t seen in many years.
The woman staring back at me was standing with a man who, despite his young age, had salt and pepper hair, a short beard, and a mole on his left cheek. The glasses he wore were the same kind we had buried him in, and he looked happier than I had ever seen him. They were standing in front of a much newer house, but it was a house I had seen in the background of that long-ago story.
It was Ms. Mary in the picture, standing with my Dad in front of their house.