On Thursday, May 18th, my friend Shelby became a murderer. She was drunk at the time, and in a bad place, which isn’t much of an excuse, and my own excuse for not stopping her isn’t any better: I was a bit drunk, too, and plain unable to believe what I was seeing. But in my defence, it was pretty unbelievable. She was a friend since childhood, and I wanted the best for her, no matter how she’d squandered her potential. No matter what she did. You don’t throw away friendship like that, especially not over something that doesn’t entirely make sense.
It all started when she got a replacement TV.
But before we get to that, and how it led to me ending up where I did, let me explain her situation. Shelby didn’t do well after university. An arts degree didn’t exactly set her on a clear career path, and a recession hit right around when we graduated. Well, about six months after we graduated, which was around the time she started looking for work – having blown through her savings. She didn’t travel, she just worked in a pizza kitchen and drank. She found she couldn’t get a better job without experience, and couldn’t get experience without a job. She got rejection after rejection, with maybe four interviews in eighteen months. Two went really badly and one went really well, but she still didn’t get it.
She gradually gave up on everything and it hurt to see it. She stopped going out and even cut her hours at the pizza kitchen. Two years later, she’d lost contact with most of our mutual friends and her family had never really been close, so she resigned herself to a lonely life watching TV and playing video games. She drank and smoked and kept to herself.
I’d always liked her; she was fun, carefree, and yeah, I had a thing for her when we first met. A curvaceous girl with a big, usually messy, head of hair and dark eyes that always looked in the midst of a sly joke. She wasn’t into me, though; she was never really into anyone, that I knew of. I got over it, accepting some people were happy alone, and there were plenty of other girls that caught my eye at uni, but I still enjoyed her company. She was always frank and made me laugh. So when she tried to recede from society, I didn’t want to lose that, and I kept visiting, knowing she needed at least someone on her side.
We settled into a relaxed routine of dinner around hers twice a month. I stopped suggesting going out, as she always made excuses. Long-term disappointment made her bitter, but I held out for those moments of the Shelby charm still buried underneath. I’d started work in an accountancy firm that promoted clean, responsible living, so there was something refreshing about seeing her still swigging alcohol from the bottle, in loose sweatpants and a stained t-shirt two sizes too big, making fun of things on TV, singing too loud to songs.
We might’ve grown apart too, eventually, I guess, but before that could happen, there was the whole TV incident. Something blew in the set she owned. After a few incensed messages about it, she invited me around on a Thursday for spaghetti anyway, saying she had everything sorted and I had to come round. I was reluctant, with a meeting the next day, but she was so excited, I at least had to put in an appearance. That was Thursday, May 18th, the day Shelby realised her potential in the most unlikely way.
I turned up and found her in her usual baggy grey sweatpants, loose white top hanging off one shoulder, hair in need of brushing. She gave me a quick hug before setting my bottle of wine aside and taking my hand to drag me through to the living room. She bounced aside, spread her arms and announced, “Ta-da!”
I wasn’t sure what to say. She had replaced her TV, but not with a new one. It had a screen barely 20-inches wide, and was encased in a free-standing box of wood, with chunky buttons. Not even flat screen. My reaction rolled out: “How old is that?”
“At least twenty years, I reckon!” Shelby laughed. “But it works, look.”
She jumped onto the sofa and grabbed a remote with the size and appearance of a police taser. The TV came on with a pop; the image flickered for a few seconds then steadied. Sure enough, there was today’s news, not a black-and-white report from decades past. Shelby flicked through channels, which took about two seconds to change each time, then she grinned proudly. The happiest I’d seen her in months.
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“Well,” I said, “it fits in.”
That was true enough: between her wilting pot plants and in front of tangled Playstation cables and discarded magazines, it definitely belonged in Shelby’s unaspiring living room. She blew a raspberry and said, “I got it down the street market from the weirdest old lady; she only wanted a fiver, and kept telling me to be careful, but didn’t speak good English. The wiring looks alright though, and it connected up to the Freeview box no problem.”
“Great.” I gave a weak thumbs-up, but despite my reservations, it was hard to resist her delight. We soon settled into our usual routine, chopping the veg and throwing together a basic pasta (Shelby rarely invested in anything beyond the cheapest foods), then we put a music channel on and focused on drinking wine before eating. An evening like any other, with us getting slowly drunk, despite my protests that I had to be up the next morning.
Then it happened.
Popstar Pepper Diamond came on the TV, and Shelby’s mood shifted. Pepper was a long-term irritation for Shelby: an over-achieving, always beautiful, enormously successful musician who everyone loved. Shelby had read an article that very day about Pepper’s donations to charity, and she snorted that Pepper spent a lower percentage of her income on charity than Shelby had on buying this TV. Big deal. It didn’t help that Pepper looked stunning in the new video, in black slacks with suspenders over a tight white top that showed off an incredibly toned stomach, and rounded, perky chest, her long hair flowing in blonde and pink. The singer couldn’t have looked happier, and it aggravated Shelby enough that she lifted the controller to angrily switch channels.
Except the channel didn’t change.
The TV fuzzed and the screen lit up brighter, and in the video, impossibly, Pepper reacted. The singer, at that second dancing on a carousel, reeled away from the camera with shock, but was somehow drawn towards it. Then with a flash, Pepper was thrown out of the TV. Like. The fully-formed singer, in 3D, toppled onto Shelby’s carpet, making Shelby shriek and throw her bowl of pasta in the air.
If it sounds impossible, it was, and we felt exactly that as we both stared in shock.
The TV buzzed and switched channel. It was like an old vending machine had just ejected a can of Coke, except that can was a six-inch tall, exact effigy of one of the world’s most famous stars. And she was moving. Pepper quickly stood, patting herself with confused, frantic motions, in as much disbelief as us. Then she looked up, and all around, eyes widening in terror.
“What. The. Fuck?” Shelby said.
“Are you sure it’s that old?” I asked quietly, desperate for an explanation. As if this was actually a new TV designed which contained hugely advanced holographic technology? I looked to Shelby, but she kept staring at the miniature Pepper. As the singer steadied herself, trembling with fear, a delighted look crossed my friend’s face.
“No, no – what is this?” Pepper said, her voice exactly as I knew it from interviews, only much smaller. She was backing off, hands up, as Shelby bent towards her. I was about to say something, anything, to diffuse this, but Pepper turned to run, and that sparked Shelby into action. Quick as a cat, Shelby pounced over the mess of magazines and spilt spaghetti, arms outstretched. Pepper sprinted for the edge of the TV set, but Shelby snatched her up in both hands. She fell back on her haunches holding up the tiny singer, hands clasped around Pepper’s waist as she screamed and kicked, little hands beating at Shelby’s fingers.
I retreated deeper into the sofa, stunned, and it’s something I’ve kept thinking about since. If I had more sense, and wasn’t half-drunk, maybe I could’ve said or done something that would’ve changed the whole course of events to follow. But instead I watched as Shelby slumped triumphantly back against the TV, one arm down to support her as the other lifted Pepper up.
“Get off me, put me down!” Pepper shrieked, with as much volume as her tiny frame could manage.
Shelby laughed. “I don’t think so. This is my living room you’re trespassing in.” She gave the woman a squeeze, knocking some of the wind out of her, and Pepper slumped over her fist. The singer pushed both hands down, trying to muster the energy to break free, but it was clear all her strength wouldn’t be enough to move Shelby’s grip. Shelby said, “I was just telling Brian how I’d like to give you a piece of my mind.” Her words were slurred and I could see from the way her big eyes moved and her arm swayed that the drink had a hold on her.
All I could think, as Shelby casually rotated the small woman, inspecting her little limbs and shoes, was that drunk Shelby was capable of irrational things. I dreaded what she was about to do.