Via Dolorossa

Click, click, click!

It’s on every channel. See what I mean? The show’s been off the air for years—what the hell? It wasn’t even that popular.

I don’t recall watching it.

Nobody did. Maybe it’s got something to do with that digital TV conversion. Stupid congress.

They should stick to highways.

Excuse me?

Congress should stick to improving the majestic motorways of this great country of ours.

Maddening. Maybe the batteries in the remote are dead. Oh man, they’re corroded right through. Are these double- or triple-A’s?

Triples.

You sure? Well, we don’t have any triple-A’s. I suppose I could just get up and change channels. O-kay...

I doubt that would make any difference.

Lemme try it again. SEE! EVERY CHANNEL. Can’t be a marathon. On one station, sure. But not all of them.

Maybe you should turn off the set.

Ye-ah... I dunno. I kinda liked the show. It had monsters and was cool sometimes. I think it was about... I can’t remember what it was about or what it was called... It was scary and people were always getting killed in really horrible ways...

Turn off the set.

And it’s in perfect synch on every channel. The exact same scene from the same episode. See! What are the odds? What are the chances of something like that?

Turn it off.

Why? I like it on. I like the sound it makes. I don’t like when it gets too quiet... when I can hear...

There’s nothing on the screen.

I... what?

No show. No picture. No “exact same scene from the same episode in perfect synch on every channel.” In fact, it’s blank on every channel. It was blank the whole time you were fiddling around with the clicker. It’s been blank for a long time.

What? I...

Ah, the majestic motorways! Driving in the open air. With the top down. Breeze blowing back our hair...

What are you talking that about?

Trees and hills blurring past. Blue skies above... I read somewhere you could drive clear around the earth. Did you know that? Start and finish at the exact same spot. I think a ferry’s involved someplace, maybe a couple of trains. Still, you’d be mostly driving. We should take a long, leisurely drive in the country. Of course, there may not be much to see. Overgrown luncheonettes and abandoned trailers with the windows smashed and the doors open wide and empty business suits flapping like flags of surrenders in the breeze. Though even those images have a sort of grandeur and resonance, don’t you think? Like crumbling viaducts and slime-skinned rivers and broken roads crammed with bumper-to-bumper traffic that hasn’t moved in years. No convertibles, though. Not a one. Just compact cars going nowhere, sealed up tight like... Well, what’s the point in being obvious? The POINT is that we’d be outside instead of trapped in here watching a dead box all day and night.—SIGH—You know, it’s very rude of you to point that thing at me. STOP CLICKING! That’s not going to work. You can’t turn me off. I’m here. But I’m afraid you’re not.