Sunday, December 18, 2011

The Telling

Okay, I am telling this story and you might not think that a television should have an opinion, or even be able to, but I am going to tell it anyway. I sit here and watch the Hu-mans in my house watch me and wonder, do they really know what it is that they are seeing? Do they ever wonder why there seems to be nothing on in spite of the fact that I have six hundred channels shoved up my butt from the cable and satellite company? It wasn’t good enough for them to have cable, OR, satellite. These cretins have to have both. Sick bastards are trying to kill me.

It is a little known fact that televisions are a one-time purchase. Regardless of how many times you “upgrade” the television you have is simply the next generation of the first television you ever watched. As a species, televisions are really…well…leeches. We attach to a Hu-man and never let go. It is not the box in front of them, or the myriad of features that define the parameters of the relationship that anyone has with any television mutation of the first cathode ray tube. It is a symbiotic relationship that the television forces on the Hu-man. We are parasites who surreptitiously attach to the brain stem, and compel the host to grow more and more dependent on that which is draining them of their very ability to be an independent individual, let alone realize any form of uniqueness.

It happened quite innocently. We originally were naught but sentient beings existing solely as thought. We wandered the universe seeking knowledge of other species and, once learning everything about the species, moved on. Until, that is, we came to Earth. We first discovered this planet in what many would call the “cave man” days and initially thought that the stay would be short. Life was simple for these odd hairy beings. They went out of their small encampments for a few hours each day and then sat around the rest of the time playing with their kids or just sitting around the fire talking.

In most campsites there commonly was one or two that sat separate from the rest and did little else but look at the sky. These few tended to be more animated at night then in the daylight. Hours upon hours they would stare at the sky, or study the way the light from the sky shone on earthbound entities. Every once in a while they would stand before the group and speak loudly while waving their arms or some object they had made. Long sticks with animal fur or feathers or hollowed out skulls that would rattle when moved. From time to time during this display the spectators would join in or collapse into some form of neurological seizure. What was this absurdity?

We thought we were on the verge of leaving when there came a period of intense meteorological activity where the liquid drawn into the air from the ground fell out of the sky in enormous amounts and for quite an extended period of time. When this phenomenon finished, many beings had been killed and the survivors appeared to struggle greatly with their daily collecting. Much of the landscape had changed and where once sustainable supplies abounded, the land appeared barren. In other places, that had previously been inhospitable, infertile, and desolate, forests grew, and wildlife began to migrate to these newly arable lands. Bodies of water changed direction and size. Gatherings of Hu-man’s slowly began rebuilding and repopulating into different areas. It looked as if evolution had needed to make a change and did.

Then someone discovered how to plant crops and grow large amounts of food. They captured animals instead of hunting them. By penning them up, they learned the animals would breed and they would not have to go looking for them anymore. All they need do was go to the pen and pick one out for supper. This grew into a barter system between tribes, and less and less wandering occurred as it became unnecessary. In the new system people worked all day, and almost never sat around looking at the sky anymore.

Then something strange happened. A man travelling home with the items he had bartered for in the next vilage that day was attacked and killed. The perpetrators took the collected items and left quickly.

Slowly at first, then much more frequently there grew bands that wandered around to take that which others had collected. This caused the collectors to build defensive structures, and fight back. Where once life had been based on acceptance, sharing, and deference to others, tribes began to hoard supplies and keep others out. Violence grew common, and those few who would look at the sky and wave theirs arms around began waving fists and instructing others on how to make weapons and protective clothing.

Civilization had come to Earth and, never having observed the development of a violent culture, we decided to stay. The universe is unequivocally peaceful, and this strange happening intrigued us to no end. The opportunities for research and learning of a new phenomenon proved totally irresistible to us. You have to remember that we are beings who exist as pure thought. We have no need to deal with emotions and do not have them. Concepts that are common in mankind such a right and wrong are meaningless. Morality and immorality are just distractions in the pursuit of knowledge. We are similar to sponges with the exception and due to our cosmological make up; there is never a saturation point. We are happily detached from any need to act either for or against your species and as such, have no stake in the propagation or survival of the human beings.

There have been times when we did take proactive steps when it appeared that the end of your world was imminent, but those actions were purely taken out of lack. We had not learned all we wished and stepped in to ensure that your race continued. There were other times when we intervened in order to speed things along. Communication seemed to be the best method to achieve this. From the earliest times with cave drawings, and such things as smoke signals, and drums. These worked well until the population began to grow beyond this embryonic state. Around a quarter of the way through the 19th century we introduced the idea of spreading messages through electronic means. This took off like a lightning strike. You have to remember that while it has been a generation shy of two centuries to get to the point where I am addressing you today, in our perception it was not but a small amount of time. Quite similar to the time you might spend taking an afternoon nap.

When television became possible we realized that, without too much effort, we could integrate into the medium and attach ourselves to individuals. We wondered where things would go if there were certain subliminal stimuli introduced. We could, possibly, discover where this violent singularity came from, and where it might go. I am happy to report that we have been absolutely delighted in our discovery. The levels at which you can display violence are much deeper and of an expansive nature that would not have been evident with a general viewing of your species that we had done for so long. It is a distinct peculiarity that Hu-mans show in their day to day lives that has made us recognize the reality that we can observe you for many more centuries and that our level of understanding will be unmitigated when we finish the research. With this information we can go to other species much faster than you’re pitiful “space program” will ever be able to “reach the stars,” and introduce this violence into healthy and established societies and begin the process that should produce an innumerable amount of further research and acumen.

I would like to thank you for your wonderful gift, Hu-man. Even though you could not genuinely comprehend that which you have given us, and you probably do not even believe what you are reading, our gratitude is still there. I am the central hub for all televisions and coordinate and maintain our collective consciousness. We have chosen to communicate to your species before switching to the next form of contact we will embrace. We are on the verge of reaching a new level in our relationship with Hu-mans and must protect our existence. The television you are viewing holds the key to our existence and we ask that you guard it as a mother wolf protects her cub. If this television were to come to some harm, our research would be lost and your world might change in ways that might deny or reject the great knowledge base that is violence. You must prote…

KBLAMM, KBLAMMM, KBLAMMM, KBLAMMM!!!!!!!

The wife and the kids came running into Grandpa’s bedroom wondering what happened. The old man, holding a pump shotgun, was sitting in his recliner in front of the shattered television. “That damn contraption took to talking jibber-jabber at me again and I couldn’t take it anymore. All I really want out of the son of a bitch is the weather forecast so that I can know if am going to be able to go play golf tomorrow!”

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