Change the Channel
This is a one chapter story. Please enjoy, I hope it affects you similarly to how it affects me.
Dear Mother,
Please turn to channel 91. I’m on T.V., you see. Remember all those days we would spend talking about how you wanted me to be a doctor? An astronaut? A lawyer? I’m sad to say they’ll never really come true. So look on the T.V., I’m there. You’ll see.
Some days I’m the President of the United States. Some days I’m a soldier. I’ve not yet been an astronaut, or a lawyer, or a doctor, but maybe someday. It is all your dreams come true at once, though they were never my dreams.
I say all this, but I know you won’t see me. Every day you come home from work, you start cooking dinner for father and yourself, and once you eat, you sit down at the nightly news. By the time anything important is on, you’re asleep on the couch and father has gone to bed. For the whole night, the T.V. stays on Channel 5 news. So no, you won’t see me on Channel 91.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll be on Channel 30. Maybe Channel 2. I’ll be waiting for you, always waiting. But I have to go, the show is on. Lights, camera, action! I’ve got to run. Maybe someday, I’ll be on Channel 5 and you’ll know what happened to me and where I’ve gone. Until then, know I love you and miss you.
Love your son,
Frederick
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Dear Father,
Please turn to Channel 91. I’m on T.V., you see. You used to laugh and say, “An actor, what a joke. If you want to live in this world, you need a real job.” You’ll be disappointed, maybe, but there is naught that I can do.
Like I told mother, I’ve taken on many jobs. I was a lawyer on Channel 14. A doctor on Channel 12. Is that enough for you? I doubt it. It was never enough. But that is not why I am writing. I know you don’t watch T.V. much, but I am asking that you look. Try to find me. It will most likely be the only way you will ever see me again.
Watch the news with mother, turn on the weather, flip through channels, anything at all. Just try, and you’ll see. Someday I’ll be there, and I’ll be waiting. Just know that I love you and I miss you.
Love your son,
Frederick
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“Again?” he asked, exasperated. He looked around the room but he knew what he would see. A white room with one whole wall taken up by a large window, covered in blinds. There was one counter off to his side with a small amount of medical equipment on top, more to provide an appearance than for actual use. And in the big, fluffy, medical chair sat Kim Kardashian.
Without his mental prompting, his voice shaped the words, “Alright then, are you ready for the Botox?”
That generally happened. There would be an overwhelming mental urge to complete some task or to say some quote that would set the scene in motion. For instance, in the last three occasions that he has been in this room, Frederick has said the exact same quote.
The first few times this occurred were terrifying. Losing control of one’s mental facilities can do that to a person. But once he knew to expect the loss of control, it became routine. Once the scene had begun, he would regain power over his own body and could act in whatever manner he so pleased.
Before the celebrity sitting in front of him could respond, he heard a horribly high pitched giggle from behind him. It was Khloe Kardashian, he already knew. Unless he deviated, the script would always remain the same. Of course, for these people, it wasn’t a script, rather, real life. For Frederick, however, he could make small ripples in the pond and watch as a movie, a T.V. show or a historical documentary spiraled away from its intended course.
“Kim, I can’t believe you’re doing this! Just look at the size of that needle,” the high pitched voice continued, grating against his eardrums.
‘I could make a joke, change the script,” Frederick thought. But he didn’t. He hadn’t for quite a while now. Too much work.
These were the times that he let the script take over again to play his part. Otherwise how could he hope to perform the role of a doctor? He was an Accounting major for Christ’s sake! But if he let his mind drift, his body would begin to move on its own, as if he was a passenger in his own skin.
He watched distantly as his hand moved steadily forward with a needle pointed toward the Kardashian’s face. Outwardly, his face showed no sign of unease with the scenario, but on the inside he was cringing away from the scene. As the needle slid through the fake tan colored skin, he involuntarily closed his eyes and shuddered.
“Holy shit! What the fuck are you doing!” Kim Kardashian screamed from right in front of him. Very slowly, he opened his eyes and looked at what he had caused.
By closing his eyes, he had missed pierced the skin at too much of an angle and the Botox needle had snapped off in the celebrity’s face. It was comical, if he was being honest with himself, though thoroughly disgusting. Now he had two enraged women in front of him, both beginning a verbal barrage against his person.
As Khloe Kardashian expressed her desire to snap his manhood like he had snapped the needle, and Kim Kardashian threatened to destroy his future, Frederick desperately wished that he didn’t have to remain for the remainder of the episode.
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Dear Father,
I don’t think I’ll be home for Christmas this year. It’s not that flights are too expensive or school is too difficult. No, it’s not that. And no, I didn’t get a girlfriend, so I’m not visiting her family instead. Sorry.
Dad, I’m stuck in the television. Stop what you’re thinking, it’s not videogames or Netflix. I mean I’m really stuck in the television. I’m currently on an episode of Signed, Sealed, Delivered. Or, at least, that’s what the booming voice says once the ghastly theme song plays and the scene starts up.
I don’t know if this will ever reach you, but the show is all about delivering undeliverable mail. Seems perfect. I’ve written a few times before but I suppose I will never know.
If you truly are reading this, change the television to Channel 22, I’m the mailman ignoring the people in line to write a letter. I’m there, you’ll see. I know you don’t generally watch the T.V., but do this for me. Please.
Love Your Son,
Frederick
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Sometimes Frederick got downtime between episodes and reruns of old movies. Contrary to what he may have believed at the start, these breaks were not relaxing in the slightest. At the end of each show or movie, he would find himself lost in a world of static and endless space. His world became the static of a television screen that stretched on endlessly with only other characters in sight.
“What foul beast art thou, that which brought ruin upon mine town” a stately knight in his shining suit of metal armor pronounced. If any other had said the same, it would have come across as a question, but this barrel-chested, giant of a man did not sound as if he was waiting for an answer.
“I was just a gate guard,” Frederick responded, talking more to the man’s chest than to his face. His gaze shook slightly as he looked up further to continue speaking.
“I didn’t mean to let them through,” he continued, “I’m just no good in a fight.” The monstrous man and all the characters from the previous episode of some medieval show that had just ended stared upon him with spite.
Even the villainous barbarians that had ransacked the town looked on without pity in their eyes. Once in the static void, the characters would unite together against him like the cells in a body against a virus. He was a disruption in the natural order.
“Thou answers the wrong question. By what evil sorcery were thou brought here” the knight proclaimed, once more as if speaking to the audience more than to Frederick.
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“That is a good question,” Frederick said at once, almost hoping that one of these characters might have an answer for him. The question bore no fruit, as it always did, and the crowd advanced toward. An angry mob without the screams and the pitchforks.
He might have tried to talk more, for the conversation had been short, but the viciousness in the eyes of the crowd informed him better. He turned and he ran.
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Dear Mother,
I don’t know how long it has been since I left. Time seems different here in so many ways. An episode can take place over the course of an hour, a day, a week or a month. Movies can be even worse. But once they are over, it is as if almost no time has elapsed and it was all a dream. I wake up in a void of static and my memories quickly begin fading from the recent events.
But the other characters don’t leave. They are all in here with me and they do not like me. I’ve changed things, flown off script, and that doesn’t make me many friends.
I’m scared, mother, and I want to see your face on the other side of the television screen. Try changing the channel, try to find me, if you can. If you’re still out there and too much time has not passed. If you ever turn the channel from Channel 5.
I hope you are receiving these and do not simply think I have left and forgotten about you. That I have been gone for however long I have without contact. That is why you need to change the channel and look. Find me and you will know.
Love your son,
Frederick
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“I suppose it doesn’t always have to be horrible,” Frederick mused as he overlooked a vast sea of golden plains from his vantage point in the branches of one of the lone trees on the plains. The grass was unmanaged and waved in the wind while elephants and giraffes roamed the field.
He wasn’t sure what show or movie he was in at the moment, but all that mattered to him was that he had been there for a few days, completely unmolested. The tree he was resting in was a massive specimen, reaching high into the air, built on a trunk wider than he would have thought possible. The tree reminded him of some memory, but it eluded him at the moment.
Upon the tree grew plentiful amounts of fruit to get him fed and pools of water gathered in holes in the bark. He enjoyed spending his day clambering through the branches and resting upon the canopy.
Of course, he knew also that this would not last. The plot would not be content to leave him there endlessly without a purpose. Sooner or later the script would take a hold of him and he would have to comply, at least for a duration of time.
“It is strange to think,” he remarked to a small sparrow sitting upon a higher branch in the tree, “that I used to be such a restless young man, always striving to be more and to overcome my parents’ expectations.”
He waited as if for a response, but the sparrow wasn’t even looking in his direction.
“Now that I have lived a life where I can be anything, I have found that all I truly want is to be me. I do not wish to be forced into these roles, even with the respect that may come from acting as President of the United States or as a renowned doctor.”
He stared up at the clouds as they passed and remained silent for a time. His bird therapist hopped from its branch onto his chest and continued preening.
“You want me to continue? Alright, I suppose. No matter how I try, I can feel myself slipping away, becoming just another character. What is the use in struggling when I know that I am not even me right now?” He looked down over his body, examining the thick hair that sprouted from his almost human body and the mane of white hair surrounding his face blocked some of his vision.
“I’m a baboon of some sort. A few episodes ago, I was a woman. What am I supposed to think about my identity when it shifts so constantly?”
The bird just chirped and hopped around his chest.
He took a deep breath, but before he could continue speaking, the bird made multiple chirps and flew away suddenly, as if in fright.
He could feel at that moment, the script beginning to worm its way through his body, taking control. Despite his previous sentiments, he could not resist as his body stood and climbed down to the base of the tree.
As he began running, the script became stronger. The only thing he could hear in his head was the repeated names, “Mufasa. Simba. Mufasa. Simba.” Over and over again.
He knew where he was going. He knew what he was doing. He knew where the story ended. And he knew what would happen if he didn’t go. He couldn’t bring himself to care.
In a past life, he would have been consumed by guilt if he thought about how deviation from the plot would affect others. However, he had lived many past lives at this point. His sympathy and worldview grew dramatically colder as time passed and the cycle of shows and movies never ended.
If he, Rafiki, did not complete his part, the climax of the movie would never occur and the hero would never arrive. But that wasn’t his problem.
All he needed was a little control. To make a small movement that was not in the script. The last days, spent alone, had given him a new mental fortitude. A feeling of peace that he had not felt in quite a time. He pushed and he forced and finally, he felt his hand move.
He fell to the ground. His staff jabbed through his throat. The weak choking noise that emanated from his mouth came more from the now rapidly improvising script than from himself. As the view of the land and sky around him grew darker, he finally felt conflicted about what he was doing. Who he was harming. The consequences he brought forth. Whether freedom was really worth it.
Things went black.
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Dear Mother,
I can tell you with certainty, dying is horrible. I remember each time: decapitation, disease, hanging, suicide, etc…. The memory makes them worse, having to remember the pain for the rest of your life. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
At first I thought dying would let me free. But I’ve died so many times, whether by the script or by deviating from it. Each time, I’m right back where I started with no end in sight. I’m now faced with the choice of freedom at the cost of persecution, or slavery at the cost of peace.
At what point is free will no longer worth it? When will I value my own self-worth so poorly that I will welcome slavery in order to find peace? If I choose freedom, I find myself once more in the static void, surrounded by enemies who want no more than to cause me pain. There is no hiding, only a constant state of fear.
But if I choose to give up my very being, I become nothing more than a character on a page. Words written in the script. I wonder if that is what happened to all the characters in here with me. To find a point at which fighting is no longer worth the pain. Where they, and possibly I, choose to become one of the masses with no more personality than some writer in the real world chooses to give. Even if that personality is vastly at odds with one’s original person.
I pray I never need to know, but I do not know how long I can continue. Mother, I just want to see your face on the other side of this television. Give me comfort that I am not alone. Just try changing the channel. I’m here, you’ll see. I just do not know for how much longer.
Love your son,
Frederick
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Dear Father,
How do I tell you that I lost? You’re the one who always told me nothing less than 100 percent would do. I hated you for it, and now I hate myself for it. I’m not sure there is a way for me to win, but I know that I have lost.
When I last wrote Mother, I had a choice to make. I made it and I know it was the wrong choice. But it was the easy road. I gave myself up for the peace I would gain. Every time I see my body move without asking it to, or hearing words come from my mouth that I did not form, I know I was mistaken. Yet I’ve lost the will power to change this, the power to go against the overwhelming pressure put upon me.
You will be disappointed. I know. But how do I fight to preserve myself when the whole universe conspires to change who I am each and every day? What is even the point of fighting when nothing I do will change anything in the grand scheme of things? What does freedom matter?
If it was true freedom, I would not be in this prison. If it was true freedom, we would be together again as a family, forgiving our past mistakes. That is what I was fighting for, up until I realized it was never a possibility. Maybe you’ll see me on the television. Maybe you’ll recognize me. I hope not.
So don’t change the channel. Don’t look for me. Stay on Channel 5 news, let Mother fall asleep on the couch as the reporters drone on, and forget about me. I fear if you see me, it won’t be me anymore. I’m on T.V., and I hope you’ll never see.
Love,
Frederick
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It was a nice house in the London suburbs. Nothing grand, but a well sized house for a family of four with a well-kept garden in the front, consisting of bright pansies and agapanthuses. The houses in the surrounding area all looked fairly identical, though none had quite a neat garden and trimmed lawn. It was a point of pride for the occupants, most especially Petunia Dursley, who considered herself the neighborhood gossip.
At a first glance at the family, it seemed like a quiet family of two parents and a son. On second glance through the house, it became apparent that the small cupboard under the stairs was actually used as a bedroom. An unhospitable bedroom, but a room nonetheless.
On this morning, Frederick found himself within the body of a young boy lying on a rather uncomfortable cot within this unhospitable bedroom. His vision blurred as he looked about the small room, but he took no real notice. He let the plot take control and sat back to watch.
It wasn’t until nearly a day later that he took any note of the happenings he found himself entrenched in. When he looked out the window only to spot dozens of owls perched around the neighborhood, all with envelopes in his talons did he recognize the scene.
It was a small moment of self-realization when he recalled this scene from one of his childhood classics, Harry Potter. The small spark of awareness was quick to fade, however, as the script once more flooded through his mind.
The morning went as the script dictated. Frederick made breakfast for the family living in the house and went to gather the mail. Things blurred together when suddenly envelopes were flying through the windows, the mail slot, the fireplace, and any other opening in the walls.
The paper fluttered down like snow and he watched as his body reached this way and that, attempting to catch a letter. The envelopes twisted out of grasp each time, and finally, Frederick felt enough pity for the young boy that he prodded him gently toward actually catching a letter.
On the front was a different name than the rest. While each letter he had seen was addressed to one, Harry Potter, this one was penned in different handwriting and with a different name.
Frederick, it said. From Mother and Father.
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Dear Frederick,
You’re on T.V., we see.