The Mechanical Hymn

My weekends at Aunt Marlene and Uncle Bert’s place had become a routine, a necessary pilgrimage to the edge of the town where their modest duplex stood. It was a new build, all sharp angles and pale brick, sitting on land that, until two years ago, had been a sprawling potato farm. Beyond the fence, a narrow, sluggish creek separated our plot from the overgrown acreage where my great-grandparents’ farmhouse had once stood, before it was condemned and torn down after my great-grandmother’s funeral. My great-grandfather, a man lost in the fog of dementia by then, had followed her three months later, and the land had been sold. But the memory of that place, of its silence and its secrets, clung to the new development like a stubborn weed.

I worked the early shift at the big-box grocery store on the other side of town, so Friday nights were sacred. I’d arrive at the duplex just as the streetlights buzzed to life, eat Aunt Marlene’s heavy stew, listen to Uncle Bert complain about his sciatica, and then retire to the spare room. It was a clean, boxy space, painted a color the catalog called ‘Driftwood Gray,’ with a window that faced the creek and the old property. The only disquieting feature was the smart TV, a sleek black monolith that sat on the low dresser like a crouching beetle. Aunt Marlene had bought it because Uncle Bert’s old set had ‘given up the ghost,’ and she’d already complained about its quirks—the way it would sometimes turn on by itself, cycle through channels, or adjust its own volume.

The first time I saw it happen, I was reading a dog-eared thriller, the bedside lamp casting a weak pool of light. The TV clicked, and the screen bloomed into a pale, static-filled blue. No logo, no menu—just a faint hiss of white noise that seemed to breathe. I found the remote, switched it off, and dismissed it as a glitch. But it happened again the next night, and the next. Always the same: the click, the blue light, the hissing. I mentioned it to Aunt Marlene, who shrugged and said, ‘It’s those new-fangled things. Bert’s always fiddling with the settings.’ She replaced it a month later, after the screen started flickering with horizontal bars and the sound began to warble, like a voice underwater.

The new TV was the same model, but it arrived with a different set of troubles. The first night, I woke to a strange, rhythmic tapping coming from the living room. I padded out to find the TV on, displaying a grainy, black-and-white image of the old farmhouse, filmed from across the creek. The camera was steady, but the image jittered, as if shot by a nervous hand. A low, humming sound emanated from the speakers, not a melody, but a single, sustained note, like the drone of a distant pipe organ. The tapping, I realized, was coming from the TV itself, from inside the casing, as if something were knocking to be let out. I pressed the power button, but the screen remained. I unplugged it from the wall, and the image died with a soft sigh, the humming cutting off abruptly.

The next weekend, the knocking was louder, more insistent, and the image was different. It showed the interior of the old farmhouse kitchen, the one I remembered from childhood visits. The camera panned slowly across the dusty counters, the cast-iron stove, the table where my great-grandmother had served us cookies. It stopped at the window, which looked out onto the backyard. And there, framed in the glass, was the silhouette of a man. He was tall, gaunt, and he stood perfectly still, facing away from the camera. I knew, with a sudden, sickening clarity, that it was my great-grandfather, in his last months, when the dementia had made him a stranger who wandered the house at night, muttering to himself. The sound shifted from a drone to a series of clicks and pops, like joints cracking, and then, faintly, I heard a voice. It was my great-grandfather’s voice, but slurred and broken, as if he were speaking from the bottom of a well. He said, ‘She’s not done with the floor yet.’ I tore the plug from the wall, and the room plunged into silence.

I tried to rationalize it. Maybe the TV was picking up some strange signal, a neighbor’s baby monitor, a ham radio operator. But the image was too specific, too intimate. The next Friday, I brought a hammer and a screwdriver, determined to open the TV and find a logical explanation. But when I entered the spare room, the TV was already on, and the image was new. It showed the farmhouse’s cellar, a place I had never been, because my great-grandmother had always kept the door locked, saying it was ‘too dangerous for little ones.’ The camera descended a narrow, crooked stairway, the light from a bare bulb swinging, casting dancing shadows. At the bottom, the cellar opened into a vast, earthen space, the walls lined with shelves of dusty canning jars. In the center stood a figure—a woman in a long, dark dress, her back to the camera. She was sweeping the dirt floor with a worn broom, moving in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. The sound was the drone again, but now it was punctuated by the rhythmic swish of the broom, and a low, wordless humming. I recognized the dress—it was the one my great-grandmother wore in the old family photos. I watched, frozen, as she turned, and her face was a featureless void, a smooth, pale blank where her features should have been. She raised the broom, and pointed it at the camera, and the TV screamed—a piercing, electronic shriek that rattled the glass in the window. I fell back, and the screen went black.

I didn’t stay that night. I drove home in the dark, my hands shaking on the wheel. The next weekend, I told Aunt Marlene I was too tired, that I’d get a hotel room. She didn’t press, but I saw the worry in her eyes. I called her on Wednesday, and she said, almost casually, ‘The TV tuner’s acting up again. Bert’s going to take it back this weekend.’ But they didn’t take it back. On Thursday, Uncle Bert had a stroke, and he was in the hospital for weeks. Aunt Marlene stayed with him, and the duplex sat empty.

I went back one last time, a month later, to collect some of my things. The TV was still in the spare room, unplugged, a dust cloth thrown over it. I lifted the cloth, and I saw that the screen was cracked, a spiderweb of fractures radiating from the center. But as I watched, the cracks began to glow, a faint, orange light, like embers stirring. I heard the drone again, low and constant, and from inside the casing, that insistent knocking. I pressed my ear to the speaker grille, and I heard a voice, clear as day, my great-grandmother’s voice, but not her gentle, loving tone. It was sharp, commanding, and it said, ‘Finish the floor. The cellar must be swept.’ I dropped the cloth and fled.

I never went back. Aunt Marlene and Uncle Bert sold the duplex and moved to a condo in the city. The new owners called me once, asking about the TV, which they’d found in the spare room, still plugged in. They said it kept turning on by itself, and they could hear noises coming from it, like someone was sweeping. I told them to throw it away, to smash it, to bury it. They laughed and said they’d just unplug it. I hung up, and I haven’t slept soundly since. For the drone never truly stopped for me. It’s a constant, low hum in the back of my mind, and sometimes, in the quietest moments of the night, I hear a voice that is not mine, but feels like it, whispering, ‘The floor is still dirty. The cellar is waiting.’