The Wonky Remote

It was a humid July night, three years before my nephew was born, when I first noticed something wrong with my television. I lived in a cramped apartment above a laundromat that never seemed to close, its buzzing fluorescent lights leaking through my grimy window. My bed was shoved against the wall opposite the bathroom door, my head resting near the far corner, and my ancient CRT TV sat on a wobbly dresser at the foot of my bed. The remote had a faulty power button—press it and the TV would turn off, but a few seconds later, it would click back on, scaring me half to death. It was just a mechanical quirk, I told myself, not a ghost. But that night, the quirk became something else.

I had drifted off to sleep around midnight, the TV still murmuring some late-night talk show. Around 2 AM, I was jolted awake by the TV snapping off with a sharp crack. I groaned, fumbled for the remote on my nightstand, and pressed the power button. The screen blinked on, showing static. I sighed, but as I was about to turn over, the static began to shift—not random noise, but forming a shape. I squinted, and the static coalesced into a figure: a tall, thin man with hollow eye sockets, standing just beyond a doorway on the screen. My heart hammered. I threw the remote at the TV, but it only made the image worse. The figure seemed to step closer, its mouth opening into a silent scream. Then the TV went black on its own, and the screen remained dark.

I sat there, trembling, staring at the dead screen. A low hum filled the room—not from the TV, but from the bathroom. I had left the bathroom light on earlier, the door slightly ajar. The hum grew, and the door creaked open fully. I could see the small bathroom—toilet, sink, mirror—but the light was flickering, casting strange shadows. Then I noticed a dark shape in the bathtub, as if someone was lying there. I called out, ‘Hello?’ No answer. The shape moved, slowly sitting up. I saw a hand, pale and thin, grip the edge of the tub. I fumbled for the lamp, and as I pulled the chain, light flooded the room. The bathroom was empty, the bathtub pristine. But the TV flickered back on, showing the same figure, now right at the edge of the screen, as if emerging. I grabbed my phone and called my grandmother who lived upstairs, my hands shaking.

She came down, her sleepy eyes narrowing as she saw my state. ‘What’s wrong?’ I pointed at the TV, which was now just showing a news broadcast, as if nothing had happened. I told her about the static figure. She frowned, then walked to the bathroom and placed her palm on the mirror. ‘This building used to be a funeral home,’ she said softly. ‘There was an undertaker who hanged himself in that bathtub in the 1960s. I never told you because you were young.’ My blood ran cold. I had moved here a year ago, and she lived upstairs, but I never knew why she always kept her door locked. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked. She turned to me, her face ashen. ‘Because I thought he would only come to those who called him. And last night, I heard you shouting at your TV to turn on. You gave him an invitation.’

I wanted to dismiss it as an old woman’s tale, but the remote in my hand clicked, and the TV turned on by itself. The screen showed the static figure now sitting at the foot of my bed. I could see every detail—the ragged clothes, the hollow eyes, the thin lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. I screamed, and my grandmother pulled me from the room. We fled upstairs to her apartment, and I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. The next day, I packed my things and moved out within a week. But before I left, I threw the remote away in a dumpster down the street. The final night, as I was loading my car, I saw the TV in the window of my old apartment, flickering on. The static figure was there, waving at me. I never looked back.

Months later, my sister called to say she was having a baby. I visited her, and as I held my baby nephew, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the TV in her living room was watching me. But it was a modern flat-screen, harmless. I told myself that was the end of it. Yet last week, my nephew turned two, and he was babbling at the TV, pointing at the blank screen and saying, ‘Man, man.’ I looked closer, and for a split second, I saw a flicker—the same hollow-eyed figure, now on a child’s screen. I haven’t been back since. And I never bought another remote. I just pray the static never finds its way to me again.