Saddy Nite

by Limey
illustration by Chris Clodgo

Saddy nite the rental people came and took away the television. Quentin sat in darkness for a while, frowning at the blank spot on the wall where his Magnavox once stood. “Well, shit…” he said.

He scratched his hairy scrota and mused upon his misfortune. No more media bombardment, no more multichannel blitzkrieg soundbites.

“Whoa…” he muttered. The yellow-painted refrigerator rattled as he yanked out a beer. He tore open a closet door, rummaged around in the rubble, and pulled out his paints and brushes. He went to the bare wall where the TV had been and proceeded to plaster the offending area in bright slashes of orange and blue and red. When he’d finished, he washed up his brushes and packed them neatly away. Then reached for more beer.

Reality kicked in like a Mexican mule. He stared down from the high windows of his apartment at the street below and everything that lay beyond it. What did people do without television? What had he done before succumbing to its neon glow? He’d been cooped up in the tiny apartment for so long that life beyond its peeling walls seemed eons away.

It wasn’t right. Not right at all. TV was a right granted to mankind by the great gods of game shows, the czars of soap. He felt his anger rising. He took out his paints again and began adding huge swathes of red paint to the mural on the wall where the TV had been. He went into the kitchen and grabbed a spatter-cloth, two more beers, and a fresh can. He painted the yellow refrigerator red. No more Mannix. No more McCloud. No morning news, no evening angst of NBC and CBS. His catatonia shattered, there would be a price.

He took his shotgun, painted the barrel blue, and began firing through his windows at every television blinking in mockery from neighboring apartments. Glass shattered onto the street, TV tubes exploded in bright shards of purple and puce. Sirens sounded in the distance. Quentin blew on the barrel of his gun and opened a can of beans.

Books, he thought as the cops beat him down the stairs. That was it…