Horrid 4. Static That Sounds Like My Mother’s Sobbing

The old cathode-ray TV in the attic hasn't been plugged in for twenty years, yet its screen glows with a sickly, electric grey. When I turn the knob, there is no picture, only the "snow." But if you listen past the white noise, the frequency shifts. It’s a wet, gasping sound—the unmistakable, rhythmic hitching of my mother’s chest as she cried in the kitchen the night she disappeared.

"Mom?" I whispered to the glass. The static spiked. The sobbing stopped, replaced by a sound like fingernails dragging across a chalkboard from the inside of the tube. Then, her voice broke through the hum, distorted and metallic: "It’s so cold in the wires, Toby. Why did you let them turn me into electricity?" I reached out to pull the plug, but my hand passed straight through the glass. The static began to crawl up my arm like millions of tiny, stinging insects, turning my flesh into grey, flickering pixels. I’m not crying yet, but the TV is