Good Morning, Johnny

Published in Quantum Muse E-zine

 

  The day my TV started talking to me was the first time I realized I was crazy.  You’d think a guy would have more warning, but I had no idea.  I was completely convinced I was your typical hormone-driven freshman boy, and that particular Saturday morning in October I was proving it by flipping through the channels instead of starting on my English essay.  I was scarfing down on some Marshmallow Matey’s, stuffing the cereal in my mouth with my right hand while controlling the remote with my left.  Hoping to waste away the morning watching Superman reruns, I flipped through the channels to figure out which one was cartoon network.

   I stopped abruptly as I hit channel 14, usually a prime example of those dull local channels that proudly air each elementary band concert and retirement center polka extravaganza.  I blinked hard, twice, just to make sure, but the image on the screen clearly wasn’t the usual boring programming.  Someone familiar looked out at me from the television, someone with a head of dark brown hair that fell into his eyes and plaid blue pajamas that were much too short.  It was me.  Someone was filming me right now, and putting it on local cable. 

  I was just about to jump off of the couch to find the hidden camera pointed at me when I registered that my on-screen persona wasn’t sitting on the couch, confusion in his eyes, cereal all but forgotten, as I was.  He was speaking urgently to someone out of the shot, waving his remote control around emphatically.   I didn’t remember when this scene had taken place, but it was clearly me, only feet away from where I was sitting now, in the same pajamas even.  It was like that one movie where the guy had been in a television show his whole life and hadn’t even known.  I quickly scanned the room but I couldn’t see any cameras.  The shot looked like it had been taken from near the TV itself… 

   That was when my TV spoke to me.  “Good morning, Johnny,” it said, in a clipped British accent.  In my panicked state I still found myself wondering why my TV was British, with a  brand like Toshiba. 

 

Click here to read more of Johnny's story on Quantum Muse.