《TV Head》 How My Brother Died January 11, 2008 Dear Diary, Another boring day of school! The 5th grade is halfway over, and nothing has changed since last year! I ride the same old bus to the same old school to see the same old people, practice with the same old cross-country team, and come home to my same old parents and my stupid same old big brother watching TV on that square, outdated ¡¯90s TV. My life is so boring! And while I got another C on my test, Phil skipped class AGAIN! I don¡¯t get how he does it! All he does is sit and watch TV, and somehow he gets good grades while not even being there. Plus, he is always singing the same stupid tune over and over again from that¡°Forbidden Road¡±song! Soooooooooooooo annoying! All he does is stream all day and show off his ¡¯90s collectibles! He wasn¡¯t even born in the ¡¯90s! The only thing he ever changes is the channel! It¡¯s so unfair! He gets voice acting lessons, but when I ask for a puppy, I get yelled at! He¡¯s going to graduate from high school this year, and he wants to run off somewhere and do silly voices for TV. That¡¯s such a stupid job! He should want to become a doctor and make us rich so we can move out of this stupid apartment! He¡¯s so selfish! Anyway, I have to go to family movie night. It¡¯s Phil¡¯s turn, and I just know it¡¯s gonna be an anime! YUCK! Till next time, Ava! May 12, 2013 Dear Diary, It¡¯s been four years since my brother disappeared. I still have that old TV of his. Today is his birthday. I try to focus on my Krav Maga. My therapist says it¡¯s good for me. She says I should stop putting my entries into this handheld electronic diary. Says the way I write, it sounds like I¡¯m writing a letter to someone. Says that¡¯s odd. But what does she know? Like every year, I dusted and cleaned the object he loved so much. That stupid TV. I think I¡¯ll even polish the remote that goes with it later. It¡¯s weird. I know he¡¯s gone, but I feel like if I keep his TV clean, he¡¯ll come back. What happened just wasn¡¯t physically possible, but I refuse to believe he¡¯s dead! I still have that nightmare. And it¡¯s a perfect reenactment every time. So perfect that I wonder if it¡¯s really a dream¡ªlike instead of dreaming, my mind is just replaying the memory, trying to make sense of it all. Walking into his room. Seeing that stray beam of light coming in from the window. And seeing that ridiculous, lifeless hunk of garbage suck in my brother like a black hole! The only object of his sweet affection was his ultimate and untimely undoing. And I remember being frozen in fear and shock. Maybe if I would have done something. If I would have reacted fast enough and unplugged it. I don¡¯t know. I doubt I could have done anything. I was just a kid. And Mom and Dad would have never believed me if Phil¡¯s webcam wasn¡¯t on. The internet got to see my brother get taken away from me right before their eyes. Of course, no one believed us at first. They thought it was just a ruse. I mean, it does seem far-fetched. But when he stopped showing up to school and stopped responding to college letters, the police took us seriously. And of course, their investigation was unsuccessful. We¡¯ve had everyone¡ªfrom scientists and detectives to psychics and preachers¡ªtake a look at that TV, and to this day, we have nothing. It¡¯s just a regular old 1995 TV. But Iknowwhat I saw, and so does everyone else! It justcan¡¯tbe a regular TV! And I don¡¯t care if it is! It has my brother! I justknowit! And I¡¯ve used it to watch that flippin¡¯ anime more times than I can count, but I don¡¯t get any clues to what happened to him or why! I¡¯m so mad and upset!! Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. What am I doing wrong? How did my life end up like this?!Whydid it end up like this? I was always so jealous of him, but honestly, I just want my brother back! There is so much I should have said to him! So much we could have done. I¡¯d do anything¡ªliterallyanything¡ªto just hear his voice one more time. Just once more. Is that too much to ask? I¡¯m crying too much again and getting my papers wet, so I guess I¡¯ll stop writing and go polish the damn remote. Ava Jackson June 5, 2013 Dear Diary, It¡¯s been a while. My last entry was a month ago, but I¡¯ve been VERY preoccupied with everything since my brother¡¯s birthday. I remember having so many emotions that day. About a month ago, on my brother¡¯s birthday, a true miracle happened. I was crying while I was polishing the remote. My tears were falling so much that I could barely see. The remote was basically soaked in them, and frustrated, I threw it as hard as I could at the TV. It bustedthroughthe screen and made a huge hole in it. For a moment, I stopped crying, realizing what I had done. And then I started crying even harder because I broke my brother¡¯s TV. The only possible link I had to him was now destroyed. Suddenly, light poured out of the TV¡ªthe same light that came through the window the night he was sucked in. The screen rebuilt itself, with the remoteinsideit, and the TV started floating in the air, creating a powerful circle of wind around the room. It floated so high that it unplugged itself from the wall and then started to shake. And what happened next was only the beginning of a string of weird occurrences. The TV started to leak weird blinking colored squares out of the bottom of it. They looked like little pixels! It was like the TV was leaking a virus into real life! And the pixels started to form the shape of a human body. And the whole time, the windstorm was getting stronger and stronger! Oh, and if you were imagining me lying down paralyzed in fear, shielding my eyes with my hand, you¡¯re wrong. This isn¡¯t the movies. I was screaming and flailing my arms in the air, tears streaming down my face, desperately trying to pry my door open, but it was pinned shut by the crazy storm in my room. My parents rushed up the stairs and were banging on my door, trying to break it down. Then¡ªBOOM!¡ªthe storm exploded! And on top of my bed was an odd figure, surrounded by my burnt sheets and smoldering mattress. It looked like¡­ well, the TV, but now it had a human body. Its long electric cord had turned into a tail. It was like that scene from that really old movie where the guy was a cyborg from the future! What was that called again? Anyway, the figure slowly stood up. It looked down at its hands and just stared at them for a bit. Then my parentsfinallybusted down the door, and I jumped into my dad¡¯s arms. The sound scared the TV-thing, and it jumped back. But as soon as it saw us, it came sprinting toward us with its arms wide. In fear, wetook offsprinting down the hall. I tripped and fell in the middle of the hallway. It came running toward me, and right before it got to me¡ªit stopped. It slowly backed up and looked at itself in the hallway mirror. It walked closer and placed its hand on the glass. Then, frantically, it tried toripits TV head off. It startedbangingits head against the wall, trying to break it, with no relief. Then it slid against the wall and curled up into a ball. It seemed¡­ really sad. I got up and slowly walked over to it. There was something about its slim figure and dark shade that feltsofamiliar. I reached out to touch it, but it slapped my hand away. Then it stood up, ran back up the hallway, and kicked in the door to the room across from mine. ¡°Hey, that¡¯s my brother¡¯s room!¡± I cried. ¡°Get out of there!¡± My dad came rushing up with a bat, yelling, and we both ran into the room. We froze. The thing was standing there, staring into my brother¡¯s mirror, holding a picture of Phil and his friends. It kept looking back and forth¡ªbetween its naked body in the mirror and the picture. Its chest rose and fell faster and faster. Then, suddenly, all its muscles tensed up, and its body started to pixelate into those weird colorful squares from before. And then¡ªjust like that¡ªit was wearing the clothes my brother had on in the picture! It relaxed for only a moment before flexing again. But this time, nothing happened. Again and again, it tried. It sat on the ground, staring at the picture, looking like it had given up. Then¡ªitknockeda familiar "Forbidden Song" tune on its head. And instantly, I knew who it was. Icouldn¡¯t believe it. My brother was back! But he had aTV for a head. I jumped on top of him, crying tears of joy. He hugged me back, and we just sat there together. I don¡¯t know how I did it, but I convinced my dad to give him a chance to prove he was Phil. Dad made him write down a bunch of stuff, but as soon as Mom saw his body, she was convinced. It was amiracle! There was justonemajor problem, though. He couldn¡¯t talk. At all. And even weirder¡ªhe wrote that the last thing he remembered was the daybeforehe disappeared. Super weird. Anyway, my hands are getting tired, so I¡¯ll finish this story later. Until next time, Ava The 8th Wonder of The World June 7, 2014 Dear Diary, Where were we? It''s been like a year right? This diary has been hard to keep up with since everything that¡¯s happened. Oh! We were at the part where my brother came back! Well, over the next several months, doctors and scientists alike came to see him and study his perplexing condition. His body was completely human¡ªhis DNA and blood type confirmed that it was the same as before he left. But when they looked at his head... it was just a normal TV. The news and media called him the 8th Wonder of the World. He still couldn¡¯t talk, but somehow, he could hear. He could play anything he saw on his screen, including every TV show and movie he had ever seen. He could even play his own memories and pick up live TV! But mostly, he communicated using red squares that appeared on his screen. At first, he could only shape them into an X, an O, or a checkmark, but with practice, he learned to express emotions through smiley faces or angry faces. He got tons of sponsors just to exist and he made major bucks from people paying to see him and book him for appearances. But even though we got all this stuff from my brother¡¯s condition... I know he hates it. He may not act like it, but I know he hates his life. See, not everything is roses for him. We kinda got kicked out of our church. Apparently, his condition was seen as an abomination. Phil was so into religion¡ªI can¡¯t even imagine how he felt. Anytime we tried to comfort him about it, he¡¯d ignore us and act distracted by something else. I might not see his face, but my brother wears his heart on his sleeve... even if he tries to hide it. When he thinks no one¡¯s looking, I see him pull out a picture of his old self on his phone and try to change his head back to normal. He¡¯s also written a manuscript for a book where he talks about how much he misses eating food. Also his life long dream of becoming voice actor is kinda impossible now. He says he gets so bored at night, since he doesn¡¯t need to sleep. He just plugs in his cord tail for about an hour, and he¡¯s good to go. He gets dressed by doing that pixel thing he does, and somehow, he can even take baths without getting shocked. Though, if he¡¯s not fully charged, he reverts back to a regular TV. His whole body gets sucked into the bottom of the TV. The first time it happened, it was super scary! We thought we lost him again, but as soon as we plugged in the TV, his body popped back out. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. We also noticed that when he¡¯s low on power, his cord tail gets shorter and shorter. Sometimes I wonder if whatever brought him back... did this to him. Ava June 8, 2014 Dear Diary, I think I¡¯m sick today. My nose is super stuffed. To make matters worse, we had to bring Phil along to nullify his death certificate. He had already seen the video of himself disappearing into the TV, but this must have been the worst part for him. He had to acknowledge who he was. And then, we had to visit his gravesite to reclaim the tombstone and empty coffin we had buried. Before we started, Mom said we should give him some time to himself to look at it. I was standing too far away to see if his screen made any symbols, but I did see him pixelate into black clothing and a long jacket. It wasn¡¯t cold, but I guess that¡¯s just how he felt. When they dug up the coffin, he ran his fingers back and forth across it, like he recognized it somehow. His screen was still blank. Then, he picked up his tombstone and put it in the car. When we got home, he took it to his room and just stared at it for hours. Still wearing that dark, blank screen. Until next time, Ava June 9, 2014 Dear Diary, So today, I went to visit our new school! To cheer Phil up, we invited his friends and the rest of our family to a giant party to welcome him back into our lives¡ªeven though he really didn¡¯t want anything like this. He met up with all his friends and saw that they had all graduated college¡ªexcept for one or two who were still in grad school¡ªwhile he had to redo his entire senior year of high school. And then, at the party¡­ I overheard his very best friends talking about him behind his back. There¡¯s Miyako, a Chinese woman who¡¯s an accomplished artist. Catalina, a Chilean lady who¡¯s a video game designer still in school. And Duncan. Duncan Johnson is a very tall and very handsome man. Like, super fit too. He¡¯s always really cool and calm. And don¡¯t get any ideas! I don¡¯t like him! I mean, he¡¯s so much more mature than I am. And besides, my brother and his friends are way older than me. But if I was their age, I bet we would¡¯ve been friends or something. Ava Jackson isn¡¯t too far from Ava Johnson either¡­ But whatever! He¡¯s just some tall, fit, black guy who works for the government and drives a flippin¡¯ Lamborghini!!! It¡¯s night black, the underlights are green, and the headlights are purple! It¡¯s so cool! Anyway¡ªlike I was saying¡ªthey were talking about Phil. Saying weird stuff like, ¡°Is this true?¡± or ¡°What sort of cruel trick is this?¡± I confronted them, and they got super quiet. Then Duncan asked me the unthinkable. He asked me if that was really my brother. The nerve of him! I got so mad, and then Catalina explained the ¡°theory¡± they¡¯d been discussing. Their theory was that Phil wasn¡¯t really my brother¡ªthat he was just some kind of really well-done copy. Just because they couldn¡¯t see his face or hear his voice, they thought it wasn¡¯t him! I will admit, something does seem a little off about him. Phil used to be so expressive with his actions, but now, he¡¯s calmer¡ªnot as wild as he used to be. But they don¡¯t know what he¡¯s been through! My brother was always talkative and all over the place, and now, after being locked in a TV¡ªor wherever he was¡ªhis whole world is different! It¡¯s probably so weird to have people constantly staring at you and treating you like some kind of experiment! That¡¯s when I remembered his manuscript. I ran upstairs to his room and grabbed it. When I brought it back for them to read, they snatched it right out of my hands. After reading only a few pages, they suddenly believed me. Miyako sighed and said, ¡°I was so upset, I didn¡¯t really think about how he feels. And even though I¡¯m not really sure if he has a brain, I am sure of one thing. Only one soul in the world talks like this, and that¡¯s PJ.¡± I could see how guilty they felt. Then Duncan told me to put the manuscript back and never look at it again. He thinks it might be more than just a manuscript. Like maybe it¡¯s his inner thoughts or something¡ªand that we shouldn¡¯t pry. But Duncan forgot one thing. I¡¯m his sister! I have to pry! It¡¯s, like, a sibling thing! I wonder if Duncan has any siblings¡­ Anyway, speaking of writing¡ªI¡¯ll finish this later! I¡¯m gonna go see if Phil¡¯s written anything new! Until next time, Ava