Still Remains

Hello! Life update: graduate school has been bananas-level busy, so I apologize for not being able to do an actual post today. But I hope y'all will like this short story I had to write for a class about an inanimate object (& perhaps there will be a life lesson or two along the way lol)

Love y'all & enjoy!

Inside a house made of my memories, stands a large, boxy T.V. straight out of a 90s dream décor Wishlist. The black-on-black machine hums loudly as it’s turned on, the 6-foot-high screen stuttering to a start before projecting a just barely clear picture. I can still feel the heat radiating from the speakers as many nights passed with trepidation and the same silent question: Would today be the day the T.V. finally overheated and gave up?

But it never did. The T.V. that was thicker than an elephant’s leg pulled through with a stubborn resilience, again and again. In all my memories, it was always there, reliable and solemn in its silent vigil of its room while it waited to turn on for those eager to be entertained.

Despite its many flaws, like a wrong button leading to an ear-splitting wave of static that was always louder than you remembered, the television was a welcome fixture in the house. It was the massive square of instant relief after school or sports in the snapshots of my youth. When friends would come over, I’d always wonder if they actually enjoyed hanging out at my house or if it was only because of the T.V. Even in my early childhood when it was still considered new, the clunky television always seemed old, which created a sense of timeless magic around it. The T.V. felt like a member of the family that stood outside of time and would continue to remain unchanged regardless of life around it.

Places in the house were renovated, including the bonus room the T.V. permanently lived in-- an event that made us realize how nearly impossible it was to move the thick, mega box.

So while my sister and I grew, the T.V. stayed the same. Through the loss of a family pet and the arrival of a new baby cousin, the T.V. never froze longer than usual. Even when the world around it progressed forward, introducing new versions of itself that were thinner and faster while its own warm light was requested less and less, the screen still loyally turned on when asked. The dwindling times it was remembered, the television projected itself with as much clarity and speed as it had ten years earlier, providing for a moment a flashback to when life was simpler.

You could pretend that things had stayed the same just like the old T.V. had, and always would.

And on that final day when the house it knew grew empty as its companions of furniture were loaded into a truck and sped away with the people it had seen through decades of life—the T.V. remained.