i am television.

My dad left my mom before I was born so I didn't really have a father, but my uncle (my mom's brother) would come over with my younger cousin and teach us to fish and grill and stuff. He was going to teach me to drive tractors and hunt too but then he went to prison. I was eight when that happened and it's been twenty years since. Most of our family stopped talking to him, but my mom didn't. She called and sent letters for a few years but when I was about sixteen, she stopped too. I didn't know why until I found a letter he sent where he tried to explain what happened. What he said really happened to his wife. He wanted my mom to send it to people, like the news and lawyers and stuff, but I don't think she did. I think she gave up on him. She thinks he's insane. I do too, but last week the guards found him, dead in his cell. No one could give us any answers as to how he died. It was just ruled a suicide even though the coroner's office said it was a heart attack. So I decided, whether he's crazy or lying or whatever, the least I could do is share his story. So I transcribed it. I'm not sure all the words are right, because his writing was really erratic but I think I got most of it. Also, I took out all the parts where he was talking to my mom or about our family or locations, because I don't want that stuff out there. "My son was watching cartoons in the living room, in my nightmare. It didn’t start with that. It started with breakfast, my wife, the newspaper, the normal crap like every other day. He was watching one of those old cartoons, from the fifties. With the animals, you know the one. He was always quiet, never bothered me. I wasn’t around much, couldn’t expect a lot out of him. It must have been hard. The rodent was on a ship or something with the duck and they were whistling and whatever cartoons do. He was transfixed on them. I called his name but he didn't respond. Told him breakfast was ready. He just kept watching. I put my hand on his head and ran my fingers through his hair. “Come on kiddo, foods getting cold.” “In a minute.” I wasn’t gonna argue with him so I sat down on the floor next to him. The cartoon kept with the whistling, not doing much else, looping and looping in that old black and white style. I didn’t get why he was so into it but I kept watching anyways. I remembered this one from when I was a kid, the duck grabbed the wheel and spun it and the dog came in. Only he didn’t. They just kept whistling, faster and faster. Not noticeably at first. I didn’t pick it up until I blinked. Thinking back I don’t remember how long that was. Must have been a while because my eyes hurt. The weird thing about it was the cartoons themselves looked a little out of breath, like they had been at it for a while, tired even. It was probably just part of the gag. I looked back at the kid and he was just transfixed, like completely. I looked back to the T.V. and they were still at it, only the screen looked a little different. Less staticy. Clearer or something. Tinted too. Blue, like a rainy day in Seattle or London or wherever the hell else it rains. The whistling picked back up and the legs of the cartoons started to get all wobbly, like wet noodles flapping back and forth. It kept going for a while, picking up the pace more and more noticeably until their legs were like jump ropes, their foreheads damp with animated sweat. Good animation for the time, I thought. The blue tint brightened. Not blindingly so, just enough to make a sharp contrast against the black lines of the characters. The ship started to sink, the blue rushing into it like water. I thought for a minute it was water. That the gag moved on and the cartoons would flail about trying to swim. They seemed to think so too. Black dots shifted back and forth nervously in black sockets. The water was rising but they kept whistling, kept dancing. I think. I couldn’t see their legs anymore, the blue was up to their necks. Their eyes kept shifting, darting fast with the whistling. All that was left were those eyes. The screen went completely blue. Bright blue, like when you have your VHS player on standby. It stayed like that for a minute, easily. I kept counting in my head, thinking about what I would do once this horror show was over. Who I would call to yell at. I didn’t go for the phone or the laptop though. Didn’t look up a number or check on my son. I just sat there, staring at this stupid fucking blue screen. Slowly, thin lines of static faded in until the whole screen was static. There wasn’t any noise like you’d normally hear, but there was a faint whistle. Slower than before. The screen faded to black and before I could get up to turn the damn thing off an image popped up, startling me. It was a concrete room, round. There was a table in the middle in the shape of a gigantic X. The rodent was there, bobbing up and down, whistling. He had one of those old cartoony doctor things on his head and a lab coat on. On each end of the X was a leather strap with a buckle. They were all tightened up but there wasn’t anything on it. From off screen something pushed a metal looking cart towards the rat. It looked confused or apprehensive at first. Like it didn’t know what to do, or it just didn’t want to. The whistling got louder and the cartoon went back to dancing and walked towards the table. It picked up two things. Some kind of saw and a round sharpening pole. It kept on whistling while it ran the pole along the saw edge and danced with its pantless bottom, approaching the table. One thing I didn’t think about then that I should have was how this was filmed. It wasn’t like the old cartoons where everything just sort of scrolled from side to side. It was at the weird angle, like it was being drawn from the top corner of the room or something. It was weirdly fish lensed too. The far sides were thin but the middle, where the table was, was round and big, almost zoomed in. That part seems important now. Like it was on display. Like whoever drew it did it that way on purpose. So you would see. The cartoon character walked up to the table, still sharpening the saw. Every pass of the pole made that shink sound you hear in cartoons whenever metal touches anything. It was loud and shrill and cut into my ears. I watched as he walked right to the giant X and dropped the pole to the floor. I imagined a clang when it hit the ground but it didn’t make one. He held up the saw and looked into the camera, the fish lens made his eye look gigantic, like he was right in front of you. He looked at me like he was waiting for me to do something. I don’t know what. He shook his head slowly, just the once. I don’t remember saying anything but I remember hearing myself say it. “Yes.” Before I could even decide if I had actually heard anything he turned back around. It was choppy, not a fluid turn. One second he was looking at me, the next he was back at the table, sawing at nothing. I didn’t feel anything at first. I just watched, confused. Then I thought I noticed something. I thought I saw those leather straps move. I couldn’t be sure so I looked closer. God, I looked closer. The right one jutted back and forth out of nowhere. It was where someone’s leg would be if they were tied down. It was where the rodent was cutting. I looked at the saw and noticed these weird animated specks flying off of the edge. I couldn’t make out the next part at first because the table was so dark but the next thing I knew it looked like some kind of fluid was trickling off of the edge. I looked closer and then the animation went choppy again. There was no turning involved, the rats face was pressed up against the screen, smiling. It was a sick twisted smile but that wasn’t what unnerved me. What got me was the abruptness. Not just of him suddenly popping at me like that, but also of the animation. It was like they were lazy or the budget ran out because the bottom half of his face was that sick grin, and the top half was back to being tinted blue. His eyes were tearing at the corners. Strands of animated saline fell down its puffy white cheeks. Then it was right back to cutting. And the whistling. Only the whistling wasn’t just whistling. Somewhere down the line, somewhere I didn’t notice it almost turned into a wailing or a plea or something. He just kept dancing and cutting until the strap stopped moving and went limp. Then all four straps started moving simultaneously. Shaking. I thought for a second I saw a face but it wasn’t. It was just a mask with some kind of zipper on it. The screen changed to a green tint and showed me an over head view of the dog from the ship. He was in a round room with a door open and no windows. He was running in circles with his arms wrapped around him. He kept at that for a while and then stopped and started bang, bang, BANG. Banging his head into the wall. Like he was trying to find a way out. The door was wide open. It was right behind him. He just kept banging until the wall dented and so did his head. I watched intently as he stared up at the camera. At me, in the center of the room and began weeping. I expected him to not have eyes or something but he did. They were completely white but he had them. As he wept I did notice something missing though. Teeth. There were gums and thin slices of tinfoil sticking out where he should have had teeth. He sobbed for a while and fell to the ground, banging his head until he was still. It went back to the rodent who had changed to stabbing the middle of the table with a giant cartoony fork, repeatedly. He just kept at it as liquid splashed up from the table in almost comical fountains. He was laughing. So was I. So was my son. “That was funny dad! Can we watch it again?” I didn’t know how long my eyes had been open. They burned. I blinked and it felt like they were completely dried out, like someone shoved cotton in there. I swallowed and my mouth felt the same. Dry. It must have been a while. My hands were clenched tightly. I didn’t know what to say. I loosened my grip and heard that clank I had imagined earlier. I looked down to see a knife hit our hardwood floor. It was covered in blood. So was I So was she. Covered in gashes. Her blue gown was torn open. So was she. My son just kept laughing, kept asking to see it again. I was trembling. I looked behind me at the wall, dented. Like her face. Smashed. Unrecognizable. I looked back at my son, laughing. Watching me. That’s when I remembered the strangest thing. Seems such useless knowledge now but it’s the only thing keeping me, I don’t know... not sane. We didn’t have a television.