Static

By

LizzY Tears

“Static today, static yesterday and crikey, if it doesn’t look like static tomorrow!” The elastic bands holding our decrepit and well-loved television remote together looked strained as my uncle feverishly assaulted the soft buttons that were once numbered one to ten. The tiny numbers had long ago worn away, but that didn’t matter because our family knew the way around the mini command broadcaster the way a technician knows the way around a motherboard. With infinite patience, my uncle Pharrel persistently thumbed at the buttons, desperate to catch even a momentary lull in the maddening fall of eternal technical snow.

It didn’t always used to be this way. Not so long ago, we lived in a place where television programs were as freely available as water from the tap. We lived in a utopia of media, where at any time of the day or night we were presented with a treasure chest of mindless entertainment. Soapies fell like waterfalls and you could take your pick of sitcoms. At 3:00pm, the children were given a tasty treat of condescending creatures with an important lesson to learn. Before we entered this world, our television sets were flooded with reality T.V and lifestyle shows, competing only with medical dramas and the occasional award-winning documentary, with Sandra Sully or Richard Attenborough putting in a guest appearance. I would run home from school, with my heart pounding to find out if Ridge would choose Brooke or Taylor and Mum would have cheesy toasted sandwiches waiting for me when the ad breaks finally cut in to my prime time viewing.

Those days were gone now, nothing more than a pleasant memory of time gone by. Three months ago, all the radio towers had been taken out by a terrorist attack and the entire of Australia had been plunged into media blindness. Our only connection to the nation and the world at large was through newspapers and the Internet, which was a poor substitute for the easy and brainless ability to switch on the box at random. Some stations had resorted to mailing out DVD and video editions of the news and television programs, but it was always a day behind. The radio provided some small relief for the lonely, desperate Australian citizens, but the attacks had also interfered with the radio network, and it was usually nothing more than static itself. Our nation was in culture shock.

Uncle Pharrel bashed our careworn and dilapidated television on the side of its exterior with an angry and disappointed fist. His purple face reminded me of a baby that falls down and can’t understand why its bottom hurts. He took a confused and pained look at the offending home appliance and went stumbling through the house with an aura of a wounded rhinoceros.

“Bianca!” He bellowed, as though he thought making noise would shock the television into submission. “The blasted T.V still isn’t working!”

My mother called back that she knew that perfectly well, and why did Pharrel think she could do anything about it? A tiny pinch of plaster filtered down from the ceiling and scattered a white dust on the top of the television. My sister and I rolled our eyes and moved to our rooms away from the uproar.

Life without T.V was more different than I would have expected. I exhausted a long list of books, computer games and videos before I resorted to what I perceived as an absolute last option. I had a conversation with my sister.

“Isabelle,” I began, hovering uncertainly in her doorway. “Are you busy?”

She turned away from her desk and surveyed me with an uncertain, calculating look.

“What do you want?”

I shrugged.

“Nothing, I guess. I just … never mind.” My nerve failed me and I wandered away from her nauseatingly pink room. I wouldn’t want to be in there for very long anyway, I reasoned.

“Paul?” Isabelle called from the kitchen table the next day. “Do you happen to know anything about … Astrophysics?”

I didn’t, and I didn’t know she did either. I told her as much and she blushed a little shyly.

“Oh,” She said, “I’ve just been so bored lately I’ve had to think of something to do. I read something really interesting on supernovas and decided to follow it up, I guess.”

I stared at her. This was really unusual. I sat down next to her at the kitchen table and looked at what she had been reading, and it really was pretty interesting. For example, did you know that the seasons depend on how thinly the heat from the sun is being dispersed around the planet?

Fascinating as Astrophysics and Astronomy really was, some part of me was crying out for the bygone days of mindless entertainment. I felt like I was sharing a common wound with everybody else who was experiencing this television blackout. I needed my time in front of the T.V where nothing else mattered but the lives of the make believe characters. I loved to lose myself in the world they created. I didn’t want to think about my own problems, I wanted to believe in theirs.

I missed the stubbornly persistent comedic sketch shows that stuck their heads up every so often before they were trampled down by the award winning medical drama. I missed the nail biting suspense of whether the secret agent would save the government team trapped inside the gas filled building and I did so wonder whether the incorrigible doctor with an intellect beyond everyone else’s would ever find true love. These people mattered to me, and I was missing months and months of their lives. It was almost enough to break my heart.

We all had to find ways to fulfil the void T.V left in our lives. School conversations were now regulated to nothing more than actual events in the lives of the participants. There was some reflection on what was happening in our favourite shows, but the suspense was missing. Without the night’s episode to validate or destroy our theories and give us new fodder for thought, there was no reason to keep wondering.

I saw the transformation of a society without media. Acting and Drama clubs sprung up from the lilies to recreate favourite scenes from sitcoms and soapies. Artworks appeared in the student toilets, display cabinets and assignment folders, as the deprived youth struggled to express their anxiety and frustration. Listening to my mother and uncle reminiscing the days of their childhood was enough to send me cringing from the room, to rediscover the delights of Lord of the Rings and The Day of the Triffids. An hour each day was spent with my sister, our heads touching as we poured over science magazines and old journal editions.

It was bizarre. It was the twilight zone. It was an alternate universe. It was a world without television!

Isabelle and I were sitting peacefully on the carpet in the middle of the lounge room, casually playing chess and listening to pop music, because it was her day to choose. I suffered through the synthesisers and fake harmonies because at least tomorrow, she would have heavy metal blaring from the speakers, to remind her who was boss. I was waiting for her to move her piece (I was hoping she would use the rook, because one more move and she was in checkmate), when I happened to glance at the neglected black box in the corner of the room.

“I don’t miss T.V much anymore,” I said thoughtfully. “Do you?”

Isabelle glanced up from her intense scrutiny of the black and white chequered board and followed my gaze. She shrugged.

“No, I guess not.” She said and returned to the chessboard. Her finger hovered over the rook, and I absently reached for the remote to distract myself from grinning triumphantly. The remote was still in its prized place on the coffee table, thinly outlined with a faint layer of dust, disturbed only by the ‘on’ button. My uncle had never quite given up on the idea of a miraculous recovery and ritually tried the T.V in vain.

I ran my finger over each of the buttons, remembering the days when the arguments were over who held the remote, not who washed the dishes. I hesitated over the little green power button and then decisively pointed at the T.V and pressed down.

Nothing happened.

I heaved a sigh of … regret? Relief? When suddenly a half forgotten jingle for Vegemite blared strongly from the speakers, drowning out the latest pop ballad on Isabelle’s cd. I stared in shock as grinning little kids with Vegemite smeared halfway to their ears paraded across the screen.

“We’re happy little Vegemites, as bright as bright can be! We all enjoy our Vegemite for breakfast lunch and tea!”

Isabelle’s head jumped up from the game and stared transfixed as we took in our first fix

of television in almost five months.

“Our Mummy says we’re growing stronger every single week, because we love our Vegemite, we all adore our Vegemite, it puts a rose in every cheek!” We sang along, revelling in the wonderful rapture of at last seeing images move in real-time, unpixelated and audible.

Finally, our dream had come true. Television had come back to us.

We crawled back onto the couch, the game forgotten on the floor and Isabelle claimed the remote. I let her have it, content to just be safe, and pure and home, back in T.V land.

Author's Note

No, I'm not giving up on Senorita, I'm just busy with Uni. This is a piece I wrote for one of my classes, the first substantial thing I've written in I don't know how long. I know it's been a millenium since I updated Senorita, but I just want to give you guys the best I possibly can, rather than some half arsed crap that I churned out because I had to. I still intend to publish Senorita and I have a few friends in the film industry now, so I'd love to turn it into a film as well, so never fear, I will eventually update. I couldn't give up on them, and I hope you don't either.

Always,

LizzY