The Chanel Static

The first time the television changed, I blamed the old wiring. We had just moved into the bungalow on Magnolia Street, the one with the peeling white paint and the grapefruit tree that never bore fruit. Mira was in the kitchen, unpacking boxes, and I was in the living room, fiddling with the antenna on our ancient set, when suddenly the static of a dead channel coalesced into the grainy image of a choir. Rows of robed figures, mouths open in silent song, swayed behind a pulpit. The sound was a low hum, like a faraway crowd. I switched it off, chalked it up to a faulty signal from a nearby broadcast tower.

But it happened again. And again. Always the same: a church service, but not a live one—the colors were too muted, the faces too still, as if captured on old film. Sometimes it was an empty chapel with light streaming through stained glass. Other times it was a baptism, water glistening on a baby’s forehead, the priest’s lips moving inaudibly. It would appear when we least expected it—after a movie, before a ball game, even in the middle of a cooking show, the screen flickering to an organ and a congregation bowing their heads.

Mira laughed at first, called it ‘God’s channel.’ But then came the scratches. She would wake up with thin, red lines across her shoulders, like long fingers had dragged down her skin. They appeared in threes or fours, always on her back, never her front. She’d catch me looking at them in the mirror, tracing the welts with her fingertips. ‘It’s the cat,’ she’d say, but we didn’t have a cat. We had a goldfish named Archimedes, and he was too small to cause such marks.

The scratches started about a year after we moved in. I tried to act calm, but my mother’s death had left me with an acute sensitivity to the unseen. I began to pray more, to place small crosses over the windowsills and salt lines along the threshold. I even paid a visit to Father Michael, a doughy man with kind eyes, who came by to sprinkle holy water and murmur blessings. But the scratches persisted. And the television kept finding its way to that church.

One Sunday morning, I woke before Mira, my mouth dry from a dream of drowning. I wandered to the living room, and there it was: the TV was on, though I was sure we’d turned it off. On the screen, a close-up of an old woman’s face, her eyes milky white, her mouth stretched into a silent scream. The image was so clear, so stark, that I felt a chill down my spine. I knelt in front of the television, my hands shaking, and I whispered, ‘Mom?’

The woman’s face turned, as if she could hear me. Her lips moved, but the sound was a buzz that made my ears ring. The screen flickered, and the image shifted to a choir again, singing a hymn I knew from childhood—’Amazing Grace.’ I choked back a sob. ‘Mom, is that you? Are you trying to tell me something?’ The choir’s faces blurred, and for a moment, I saw my own mother’s face in the front row, singing among the robed figures. And then the static returned, and the TV went black.

I didn’t tell Mira about the face. I was afraid she’d think I was losing my mind. But that night, she woke up screaming. She clawed at her nightgown, and I flicked on the lamp. Her back was covered in scratches—not just a few, but a lattice of them, deep and angry, some oozing with fresh welts. I held her as she sobbed, my mind racing. ‘It’s not my mother,’ I whispered into her hair. ‘I don’t know what it is.’

I remembered something my grandmother used to say: ‘When a soul passes, it lingers only if it has unfinished business. But if it starts to affect the living, it’s no longer a soul—it’s something else.’ That night, I went to the garage and found the old transistor radio from my childhood. I tuned it to the vacant spot on the dial, where there was only white noise. I placed it on the nightstand, and I prayed.

The next day, I called a psychic recommended by a friend—a flamboyant woman named Rosa with gold hoop earrings and a voice like honey. She came to the house with a pendulum, walked through every room, and stopped in the living room. She held the pendulum over the TV, and it began to swing wildly. ‘What do you see?’ I asked.

Rosa’s eyes were closed. ‘There’s a woman in white, she’s standing behind you. She has your nose.’ My heart skipped. ‘She says she’s okay, but there’s something else.’

‘What else?’ I said, my voice barely a whisper.

‘A man in black. He’s been here a long time. He wants to be in the light, but he’s trapped.’

‘Is he the one causing the scratches?’

Rosa opened her eyes, and they were filled with tears. ‘He’s been here before you came. He’s attached to this house. He wants to be free, but he doesn’t know how.’

I burned sage, I read from the Bible, I even tried to communicate through the TV, asking it to show me the way to help. But the more I reached out, the more violent it became. The scratches spread to me, and one morning I woke to find the numbers ‘777’ carved into my forearm with a sharp fingernail. Mira was ecstatic—she thought it was a sign of good luck. But I felt only dread.

Desperate, I drove to the city archives and researched the bungalow’s history. The records were sparse, but I found a name: The house had belonged to a minister named Jonathan Ewing in the 1950s. He was known for fiery sermons and a strict congregation. He died in the house, of a heart attack, according to the death certificate. But the certificate listed no survivors. No family. The church he pastored has since been demolished.

I returned home and stood before the TV. The room was dim, the evening light casting long shadows. I turned the TV on, and there he was: a man in a black suit, a white collar, his face stern, standing behind a lectern. The image was pristine, high-definition, unlike the grainy earlier broadcasts. His eyes were locked on to mine. They were not the eyes of a benevolent father but of a judge, and they seemed to bore into my soul.

‘What do you want?’ I asked, my voice steady.

He leaned forward, his lips moving without sound. But I heard him, not with my ears, but in my mind: *’I need to confess.’*

I felt pity then, but also fear. ‘I’m not a priest.’

*’You are a believer,’* he replied. *’That is enough.’*

And for the first time, the TV flickered, and the screen went black, and a single word appeared, glowing white: ‘WAIT.’

That was the last time the TV changed. Mira still gets scratches, but less frequent now, and always after a storm. We keep the TV unplugged, but somehow, it clicks on by itself at 3:00 AM, showing static and that same single word: ‘WAIT.’ I do not know if my mother is among the choir, or if she sent me to help him, or if she is the one trapped in that house. But sometimes, at night, I hear a faint humming, and the smell of old incense fills the room. And I wonder if the dead are not watching us, but waiting for us—and some of them are not content to wait forever.

We are still in the bungalow. Some things are worse than moving on. Some things are waiting.

And the waiting, I’ve learned, is the hardest part.