Night 1
“Mom?”
My eyes darted open to see him, blanket in hand. His fingers were precariously clutching the ridges, pulling at the seams of the edges. Light infiltrated the room only from the cracked door from which he had only briefly emerged.
“Yes, honey?” Instinctively I flicked on a light, checking the clock. 2:49. Something had obviously spooked him. He was bouncing indecisively, a look of shame across his face. He seemed upset.
“There’s a man in the TV.”
I stepped over building blocks and action figures as he guided me to the television his father had recently put in his room. It was sitting on top of the dresser, a heavy compounding piece of metal. As we approached our distorted reflections grew in size. My teeth clenched at the sight.
For the past year he had been begging and begging, saying he wanted to watch Disney Channel so he could talk about it at school with the other kids who had cable. My concerns had lied with whatever channels he could stumble upon. He was just so young my mind raced to think of what all he could possibly be exposed to. His father didn’t seem to think it was an issue, so he bought him one for Christmas. I found out the very morning my son did.
“So what if he accidentally sees some tits on HBO?” He patted my back before going to help him get it set up in his room. Each touch radiating through me a little too much.
Each pat echoed with a hollow thump.
It would’ve turned into a fight, so I just let it go. I didn’t want to make it a fight, not on Christmas. That’s what I told myself at least.
“I didn’t want to wake you, I didn’t want you to get mad,” my son stood behind me consistently watching my feet take the first steps into his room. A red standby light in the corner of the television signaled it was off. The maroon glow soaking everything. My hands reached for a warm lamp, uncomfortable with the way things looked.
“What do you mean there was a man in the TV, you mean on the TV, right?”
“No.”
“Honey, I think you just forgot to turn it off before you went to bed-”
“No, the TV was off. Can you take it out of my room?”
Okay. So the TV was off. He must’ve had a nightmare, I figured. However, this was a big block of metal and electronics. Its weight was like cinder blocks, I wouldn’t be able to move it by myself, not without making more noise and waking up his father, and I’m sick of arguing.
“What exactly did you see?”
“A man.”
“What kind of man?” His vagueness wasn’t helping. I couldn’t help him if he hid what was going on.
“A TV man.”
As my teeth continued to grind my anger moved away from him. How could I have been mad? The kid is scared shitless. Even if we were going in circles, his father shouldn’t have put it in his room. I had said this would happen. Yet, I am the one handling it, like I always do.
My hands had been grazing the screen. A soft tingle of electricity made the hairs on my arm stand up. The high frequency hum is barely intelligible to my adult ears. This would have annoyed me in the master bedroom. How anyone could sleep with this constant distraction was beyond me.
“What did he look like?”
“I dunno. Kind of like a clown, but he wasn’t a clown. He had this piece of hair that fell in his face, but he was on my TV.”
Okay. So this was definitely a nightmare I was thinking, and it probably was from something he saw before bed. Dreams manifest themselves like that, but he doesn’t understand. As I got older I could recognize that all dreams are just a collection of thoughts your brain doesn’t know what to do with. So it organizes them like files in a cabinet while you sleep. It’s one of those things that makes sense when you get it explained to you like that. They aren’t premonitions, or warnings, or signs from god: They’re neurons. He wouldn’t know what a neuron is though, he’s six.
Just like how a television is just wires and surges of electricity. Sparks that coalesce in a picture on a screen, and that annoying hum. It makes my ears hurt, even from the one in the living room. To think of how multiple rooms in this house were tainted with that hum.
I got on my knees.
“Honey, I’m certain this was just a nightmare, or something. It’s not real. The TV is off, you said you turned it off before you went to bed. Nothing can come on the TV if it’s off. Think about it.”
“I guess that makes sense, can we unplug it though?”
Whatever is going to fix this. Sure. I’m not going to fight with him.
“Yes,” I say without much emotion.
He got back in his bed as I pulled up the covers. I kissed his forehead and turned the light back out. As the red glow of the standby light illuminated him I yanked the cord out of the wall. Pitch black now. I should buy him a nightlight. Maybe that would fix it. I have nightmares that night too, ones I hadn’t had since I was very young.
Night 2
I felt a nudge. It gently awaked me, as I looked to see him standing over my bed again.
“Yeah, what is it sweetie?”
“It happened again.”
Warm milk was soon hitting his favorite mug. I had thought it was warm at least, but he told me it’s cold. My son sat on the couch unsure of what to make of the television in the living room. It was playing some old western movie they only play early in the morning, unseen by most anyone. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we were the only viewers. I moved to sit beside him, an awkward distance between us. I should move closer, but I don’t.
“Honey, what’s gotten you so shaken up?”
“Nothing,” his eyes glossy as they are watching the TV. I grabbed the remote and turned it off.
“You know it’s a nightmare right?” He shakes his head affirmatively in response, as I tussle his hair. He was clearly bothered by something. You wouldn’t have a nightmare twice in a row for no reason. I wouldn’t. I racked my brain trying to think of all the things he would not be telling me.
He’s probably getting bullied.
He hadn’t been in school for very long, he only started about a year ago. I didn’t remember much from being that age but I could only imagine how scary it is to finally leave the safety of your parents to go be in a room of strangers. To be by yourself for the very first time. The isolation of a crowd.
Other kids can be mean. Not that my son was frail or anything. His father would make sure he wasn’t. Yet, he definitely hasn’t experienced much hardship before now. Any little thing might be setting him off.
“How is school going?”
“It’s okay.” He trailed off, not giving it much thought. I know what’s really going on, it’s obvious.
“Hey. You know you can tell me anything right? I’m not going to get upset, or mad, or…”
“I told you about the TV man last night and you didn’t believe me. He showed up again.”
I wasn’t really sure what to say here. It’s hard to slowly introduce the reality of the world to a six-year-old. He still believes in Santa. I’m not going to destroy all the magic of being young tonight, but how do I explain certain things that are just impossible? Sometimes things just can’t happen. It was a nightmare.
“It’s not that I didn’t believe you,” I tried to rationalize. “I was just trying to explain what you saw.”
“I saw a man.”
“In your dream. You saw a man in your dream.” I approached my next point very carefully. “Are you getting picked on at school?” I prodded.
“No. I have a lot of friends, like Carly, or Jenna, or Matthew, or…”
“What do you and your friends do at school?” I wonder if he had misinterpreted bullying for friendship. They could have been tricking him with occasional sincerity. He was already more gullible than other kids. He believed his nightmares were real. If they were making fun of him, and he didn’t have a frame of reference for someone who actually cares, how could he ever know the difference? He was naive. I didn’t blame him, he was just young.
“We sit at lunch together and talk.”
“Talk about what?” I expected him to say something off-color. They were probably calling him a girl, or pushing him around. I’d get to the bottom of it.
“Robots and stuff. Disney channel.”
Oh.
Maybe they were just his friends.
“The TV man wants to be my friend too, he said.”
“He wants to be your friend?”
I patted his back until my fingers suddenly recoiled, but I wasn’t sure why. Was I comforting him? Or was I being dismissive? I was comforting him. Yeah.
“Honey, we unplugged the TV. How could anything appear on the TV if it was unplugged? Things that need to be plugged in don’t work when they aren’t.” I had a feeling this tactic isn’t going to work again. It was a band aid solution before, it would be a band aid solution then too.
“Well it was off yesterday too and it happened.” He finished his milk and laid back down on the couch. “I want to sleep here.”
The living room freaked me out. Our back wall is mostly windows with a screen door. I can see nothing outside. It’s an abyss. I try to rationalize that by thinking of how many people live closeby, it was supposed to be a safe neighborhood.
One of the safest in the area. That’s what his father proclaimed.
I would never be able to sleep down there, what if someone were to walk up and knock on the window while I was sleeping? Someone I didn’t know. Now that’s what I have nightmares about, things that could actually happen. A tangible threat.
Not that it would, but some freak could decide to prey on this house and look through one of those windows in the middle of the night. I’m not gonna tell him that though, I understand that’s irrational, even though that’s something that could actually happen. It’s a safe neighborhood, right?
“Would sleeping here make you feel better?” Did this not freak him out too? How did I not understand my child?
“I think so.”
I bring his blanket down and tuck him into a little corner of the couch. Whatever works.
As I walked back up the stairs I felt disoriented, almost losing my footing on multiple instances. All the shadows projected from various windows illuminate the stairway. Everything is so quiet in the dead of night. Every corner was shrouded in a blob of darkness. I wondered how easy it would be for someone to hide in a corner unseen. Then the blob moved.
I turned the light on. Everything is too bright for a moment, then as my eyes adjust I realize all the shadows were just that. Shadows. I was giggling. I was so stupid. No one is going to hurt me, not again. There was a picture of me and my father on the stairwell, I turned it face down.
I turned the lights back off as my son asked what was going on.“It’s nothing, just checking.” Nothing was in any of the corners, just cabinets and bookshelves and potted plants. Various furniture uninhabited.
I looked at the security alarm. Armed. Good.
Nothing is getting in without the entire house knowing. We owned a gun, somewhere. As much as I hate them, it did give me some comfort then. Besides, other people were in the house. My husband would protect us if someone were to break in, or I could defend myself. I could hold my own if I had to, I had the ability to protect myself. I repeat that like a mantra until I fall back asleep. I didn’t fall back asleep.
Night 3
“Mom, I had the nightmare again.”
I was up. My patience was thoroughly tested, at least he knows what it is now. A nightmare. The rational explanation.
“Does anything else happen in the nightmare? A man walks on screen and then what?”
“He just talks to me, he says he doesn’t know how to get out.”
“Get out of what? The TV?” I really hated this thing. I didn’t want it for him, he’s too young. We still haven’t moved it out of his room, I mentioned it to his father yesterday morning. He said to just leave it, he can’t face his fears otherwise. It was a TV, it can’t hurt him. It was the new millennium, we survived Y2K, he said. Saying if he threw out the computer last year, and then when nothing happened, we would’ve been stupid and out of a computer. We wouldn’t have learned anything. He wanted it, we’re gonna leave it.
“It happens at 2:30. Every night.”
My son was elaborating, but it was nonsensical. I don’t know why I even asked. I looked out his window, my attention drawn to the cars parked on the road. I don’t recognize one of them. It’s a safe neighborhood, though. What would stop someone from driving up and breaking into my house? What are the chances of that? What does safe neighborhood even mean?
I was about to wake up his father to check it out. Then I stopped. He would write it off, he’d be mad, like how he gets when he is tired. It will turn into a fight tomorrow, and I just can’t keep getting swept away in this false reality I’ve started to believe in. Or so I was told earlier that night.
I’m sick of how redundant this week has been.
How many times would he wake me up because of a nightmare? If he doesn’t get through one night without getting scared what does that mean? We should look into a therapist, but at this point I’m wondering if any of this can be solved through therapy. Lexapro? Zoloft? Something can fix this, because I clearly can’t. Despite my greatest efforts at reassuring him he wouldn’t quit, and he probably won’t quit until the TV comes out of his room, but then what lesson is learned? That fear wins? I started to sound like his father.
He must’ve seen something on the TV those first few days he had it. That has to be what it is, or else someone is actually talking to him on the TV, which they aren’t. Maybe he was schizophrenic, or is hallucinating somehow.
Becoming a mom I had never considered our son would be any different than the average. Was he mentally ill? At the very least it’s some kind of anxiety disorder. Was it my fault? Are the genetics of abuse something passed down? I took a deep breath.
From my brief time in therapy I knew it was easy for things to escalate. When you’re anxious sometimes things seem worse than they are. You are asked to look at the odds of something happening. I try to reframe it for him.
“Okay let’s look at the odds of what you are saying.”
He nodded.
“What are the odds that there is a man in your TV?”
“I don’t know what odds are.”
“Then why did you nod? It doesn’t matter. It means the chances of something happening. So let’s look at the odds of a man being in a TV. I’m gonna say one in a million. Now let’s say that happens to be your TV, that’s like another one in a million.”
“But he is in my TV.”
“But the odds of that are so low.”
“But he is in my TV.”
I didn’t know what to do.
Maybe his father would, in the morning.
Night 4
“Mom?”
I was startled. It was him again, obviously. I fully expected it. Hair sticking up in a way that looks like knives in silhouette.
“He talked to me again.”
I sat in his room, watching him wave his arms around in an effort to explain the situation. He’s so full of energy, despite the time. The TV sits there. My husband tried booking an appointment with a doctor on the other side of town. Franklin’s Family Pediatric Psychotherapy. We can’t get in till next week, another thing I will have to take care of myself. He leaves for a business trip today, he said to wake him next time this happens. I don’t want to, I feel like he’ll be mad. Too mad for our son to handle.
“The man said he liked me.” My son was hysterical. I’m tired.
“Okay, honey, I know you are scared. But we talked about this, it’s not real, there isn’t a man on the TV. It’s not on, this is the fourth night in a row.”
“He was on earlier.”
“Stop.”
My voice raised higher than I meant for it too. He flinched. My son had never flinched before, not at me at least.
“I didn’t want to wake you again, I was scared you would get mad.”
“I’m not mad. You just aren’t listening.”
My voice was way higher than before. Why did it get louder, and not softer? I wanted it to be softer. I was yelling, and I wasn’t trying to. Why was I yelling?
“You can’t keep waking me up, I told you it was a nightmare, last night you even told me it was a bad dream. I thought you understood? Fake things can’t hurt you, stop making up fake things. Tell me how a man would come on the TV If the TV is off? How would a man step on the screen? Can you tell me?” I screamed.
It was louder than the tornado sirens that would blair during fall. He clammed up, and tears filled his eyes. I regretted it immediately. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I can’t keep waking up in the middle of the night, I can’t keep doing this until next week when we can see a therapist, even then who knows how long this will take after that.
“Nothing is going to hurt you! The alarm has been armed this entire week, if anyone is going to break in, it would go off. The only way we wouldn’t know is if someone was in the house already, and the only one in here right now is you, your father, and me.” I’m still going off. Why am I still going off?
“I don’t want the TV anymore, please just take it back.” He was crying.
“I will in the morning,” I whispered.
I left the room and wiped away any sign of emotion from my eyes. I don’t know how or why it got away from me. I wasn’t mad so why did I yell? I chalk it up to some kind of adrenaline rush, there is always a rational explanation. I wouldn’t yell if I didn’t mean it, and I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it.
I look behind to see him crying into a pillow. I should apologize. I don’t. As I walk back to my nightstand I see the orange bottle, I grab one of the tablets. I swallow.
Night 5
The CRT sits in the corner of the room. I haven’t fallen asleep. It’s reflecting the entire bedroom, curving the image at the corners. It doesn’t give me comfort, it’s letting me see too much. We’re going to move it to the garage tomorrow, his father said he could have it when he learned to stop being scared of things that aren’t real. That returning it was a waste when he will want it back again within a week.
He left for a business trip yesterday. The thumping of his briefcase as it had carelessly collided with furniture radiated through the house then. He was in a rush. Now, it was just me. Before he left he said he would move it into our room, so we could use it if he won’t.
I’ve had recurrent nightmares before, things like being on a plane and it crashing, or being gunned down. Stupid shit. I never had them every night for 4 days. I had brought up, maybe, if we should take him to therapy, or talk to the school guidance counselor or something. Something must be wrong, some kind of chemical imbalance, I don’t know.
My husband wrote it off as him being scared of nothing. That medicine doesn’t fix being a baby, because that’s all our son was: a baby. He doesn’t know I’m medicated. I never told him about my father, or how his bouts of anger left holes in the drywall of my childhood home. I figured it was easier to just hide that away in a box that would never be opened, as long as I kept taking those tablets.
I wished the TV was covered. It was a black screen staring at me, eyes without a face. What the fuck did he see? What could he have seen on the news, or HBO, or the fucking history channel that spooked him this bad. My legs were restless and I was kicking the blanket trying to reposition it in ways I thought would be more comfortable. It was for a moment, then I kick it around again. Having to stare at myself in the reflection of the screen isn’t helping. I hated it.
The alarm said it was 2:29.
In one minute it would be 2:30.
I think I had freaked myself out. What a creepy thing for my son to say: that every night at 2:30 a man on TV would talk to him.
I was hoping to have fallen asleep before now, scared at what would possibly happen if I was awake. If I was asleep nothing could hurt me, or if it did I wouldn’t know.
Being asleep seemed to solve most problems. Yet I hadn’t been able to get much of any this week. I think part of me wanted to know once and for all if I would hear anything, or see anything. Yet, I knew I wouldn’t. The TV was off, it was physically impossible for anything to come on screen. The ceiling fan turned. At least my son hasn’t come into the room yet. Maybe he won’t tonight. Was it really as simple as taking the TV out of his room?
I looked at the television.
What is it about you?
The clock turned to 2:30.
Nothing happens. Of course nothing would. To believe I had ever thought something might have. I’m so dumb. All illusions had been shattered, and with newfound confidence I got up to plug the TV back in so I could watch something. It’s just a television. A fucking television set. Harmless. I was crazy. I had always been crazy.
As I approached something changed.
A leg stepped in from the edge of the frame. I looked over thinking it must’ve been a reflection from the door. It wasn’t. My eyes darted to the cord, they followed it to an outlet. There was no contact between the plug and the wall, the TV wasn’t on, it physically couldn’t be.
A man walked on the screen of the TV, wearing overalls and a flannel shirt underneath. He held a hammer, his face white as paper. He looked around as if he was lost, taking a moment to go back deeper, getting smaller as he walked away, and then he got closer. He got closer. It looked like he was tapping on the glass. Everything besides him was still black, all the pixels that made up the screen were off.
“Where’s Noah?”
He sounded muffled. I wanted to scream, but as my mouth opened nothing came out. I was hallucinating, or dreaming, or having a psychotic break.
“I wanted to tell him I found this hammer. I can come out of the TV now.”
It swung towards the screen and it shattered. I’m screaming my head off, scared to death of what’s about to happen. Who is this man? What does he want? I run to grab Noah, slamming the door behind me. It doesn’t help much as a hammer breaks the door down.
I have the ability to protect myself.
I run and I grab Noah, taking him into my arms as we haul our asses down the stairs. The man standing at the top. He’s giving chase, but it won’t hurt Noah. No one will hurt Noah. I won’t let anything hurt him.
Scramble through kitchen cabinets, I find a lockbox. Inside is a small pistol my husband bought, he said I was never allowed to use it. That I might hurt myself, in more than one way. I grab it and load it, Noah is cowering behind me.
“Cover-” I started to yell at him, I stopped. I say it again, strong but firm. “Cover your ears.”
The TV man approached gently. Alarmingly deceptive.
“I just want to be friends with Noah,” a charming voice sounds as he steps down the stairs. The hammer barely being held by his hand, it clangs and crashes as it hits each step. The thumps are hollow and sickening.
I put my finger on the trigger as the TV man reaches the bottom step.
“If you take one more step I swear to god I will shoot. Do not fucking test me.” I’m shaking. I really don’t know if I have the ability to shoot this thing. Is it even human?
“Why would you shoot me? I just want to be Noah’s friend,” he swings the hammer upwards.
I have the ability to protect myself.
I have the ability to protect what matters to me.
I shoot.
The man falls over as I grab Noah, and take him into my arms.