Ian watches TV (a Broken World story)

Ian doesn’t watch a lot of television. He figured he’d better turn on the TV and catch up on what he’d been missing.

The first thing to come on was a remake of To Catch a Predator. The host was waiting with baited breath for someone to arrive. The man apparently had been lured there on social media with the promise of meeting a much younger girl. Eventually a car pulled up and out climbed a man who appeared to be in his early forties. Flowers in hand. The host and his camera crew came running at him. The man seemed bewildered. The host thrust a microphone into the man’s face.

“Expecting to meet someone?” asked the host.

“Yes…?” answered the man.

“And how old is this girl you’re meeting?” demanded the host, visibly worked up.

“Um… twenty two I think” the man replied.

(Audible gasps of horror from the host and crew)

“You monster!” cried the host, his fists balled up in rage.

Ian switched the channel.

It was a nature program on beavers. There was a voice talking about how ingenious the beaver is. How they build elaborate dams by cutting down trees with their sharp incisors. The voice called them the ‘Engineers of the Forest.’ Whimsical music played in the background. The voice explained that a few years ago they found a split-level dam that confounded the group of scientists that had studied it.

Then the voice continued, saying that last year a six-story mixed-used dam was discovered that included residential, commercial and retail space.

Ian switched the channel.

A popular sitcom he couldn’t quite place. A handsome man saying “The thought went too far for me, and I shun far-fetched ideas. They are dangerous, since I am a man, and you know how much men are accustomed to seeing thoughts as their very own, so that they eventually confuse them with themselves.” A studio audience, or laugh track (he couldn’t tell which), erupts in laughter.

An attractive blonde woman with large breasts replies “Will you therefore confuse yourself with a tree or animal, because you look at them and because you exist with them in one and the same world? Must you be your thoughts, because you are in the world of your thoughts? But your thoughts are just as much outside yourself as trees and animals are outside your body” and again the audience dissolves into loud chortles and guffaws.

Overhearing the conversation an eaves-dropping red-headed woman with large breasts makes a face and says “Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities, not things you possess and encompass. Rather, they possess and encompass you, since they are powerful demons, manifestations of the Gods, and hence reach beyond you, existing in themselves.” The studio audience/soundtrack practically wets themselves.

Ian switched the channel.

“We interrupt this program for a breaking story” someone interrupted. “Our News Five helicopter is flying above the Butler Falls Farmer’s Market where there is a developing story involving a tense police stand-off.”

The camera switches to a reporter standing in front of a farmer’s market swarming with police. “Apparently a man in his early forties entered the pet store and began consuming gold fish” said the reporter with an air of authority. The people in the background of the shot seemed to nod their head and indicate that she was on top of things as far as the facts were concerned.

Bolstered by the support of the onlookers, she continued. “When police arrived he thrust his hand back into the tank and grabbed more fish. He told the police that if they took another step he would eat those fish as well. That was an hour ago.”

Ian thought about changing the channel again.

“In a few minutes we will be speaking to the Butler Falls Chief of Police to see if the man has issued any demands and to see if anything more is known about the condition of the goldfish.”

Ian turned off the TV.