Channel Zero
There’s a very old TV set in the staff room where I work, it’s one with a big sliding knob for volume control. It was made in a time when they allowed people to have direct influence over the volume, brightness and contrast of their TV feed. I don’t like these days of predetermined increments – I’m always yearning for the hidden volume between the clicks – I think they may be broadcasting secret messages at those frequencies. Anyway I’ve discovered that the afternoon is where TV schedulers hide all the films, so I keep catching little fragments of films on my lunch hour. Never seeing the start or the end of a story becomes quite disorienting after a while - all the fragments bleed into one undifferentiated narrative and this starts to corrupt my own memory, so I get to the point where I think I’ve actually experienced these things directly.
This week I have seen or done some or all of the following:
Worn a frock coat and tricorn hat whilst lowering a young boy down a well to find a jewel hidden behind a marked brick.
Worked as a hard-bitten newspaper reporter initially sceptical of a man’s innocence.
Had a nasty attack of claustrophobia after being miniaturised, put in a nuclear submarine and injected into somebody’s arterial system.
Found a man’s hat with his name sewn inside at a murder scene.
Driven along a freeway in the US with a live pigeon stuck to my head.
