Eddie Bowmer was not your typical twenty-something male. He was more than that. He was born with a talent, the ability to repair objects named useless and disposed of and return them to a state of use even better than they were the day they came off the assembly line. His specialties were televisions. Everyday, Ed had a routine. He would leave his apartment on the fifth floor at 6 am, while stuffing a chocolate moon pie into his oversized mouth, heading directly for the local dump. It was a 36 minute bus ride to be exact, and he wouldn’t dare be a second later than 6:45, the time when all the best city waste is thrown into the mounds of forgotten technology that lay to rest at Cosley City Dump. For as long as it would take, Ed would search ruthlessly through the piles of rusty metal, taking out any item he may find suiting to his needs at the time. Then he would make his way to the nearest McDonalds for 3 cheeseburgers, 2 large fries, and a large strawberry milkshake. After his wholesome lunch he would hop the next bus back to 27th street, where his overstocked yet humble apartment lay in wait for his next piece of broken treasure. For the rest of the evening he would work on fixing and repairing boxes, compressors, switchboards, joysticks, or whatever other object that needed fixing. Then he would clean it up with perfect preciseness, takes its picture, and start an auction for it on eBay, Ed’s primary and only source of income. Dinner consisted of a micro waved chicken and mashed potato TV dinner and a Pepsi. He would be in bed by midnight. Ed always slept with a night light.
This particular day was different for Ed. It was a rainy Friday. The sun had hidden itself behind grayish yellow clouds and all the streets were at least flooded by 1 inch of black rain. He could smell the pavement cooling off from his apartment as he stuffed down his morning moon pie and looked out the window. He sifted his large round body through a pile of 1990s microwaves over towards the couch, contemplating what he would do today since he couldn’t go to the dump with all the rain. He looked around him. On one side of his couch were microwaves and old computers, on the other were treadmills, VCRs, and calculators, all of which he had sitting around for months and never touched other than to make paths through them to get to the closet. But what caught his eye the most were the 41 televisions that bombarded his guest bedroom. Televisions were a different deal than other items he repaired. To Ed they were special. They had to be dealt with utmost care, repaired to be exactly how they were when they were first made, not a wire different. But they were also his favorite to repair, and it was what he was best at. “Alright. Televisions it is” he mumbled to himself as he grabbed his tool kit and extension cords and took to work in the crowded guest bedroom. He hooked up every television turning them on and off, examining wires and bulbs. At lunch time he had 2 repaired and 39 well on their way to being brand new. As he sat on the shaggy carpet, fiddling with the wires in an Orion a large crash of thunder shook the entire apartment building and the power went out. He shrugged his shoulders and moved a large sweaty piece of his sandy hair off of his large bulky nose. Two months ago he gave up on selling his first repaired generator on eBay and installed it to his own apartment. It cut on only moments after the main power went out and he continued his work. He confused the next rumbles to be thunder when actuality they were his own gut, screaming for the artery clogging goodness of McDonalds. He left his working quarters and made a path back to the window. The rain had quickened and there was no luck for McDonalds today so he would have to make due with a TV dinner, besides, he had plenty of TVs for it to go with. But something felt strange to Ed as he buried his head in the fridge reaching for a Pepsi while his chicken defrosted in the microwave. He felt like he was being watched. He looked around in the dark corners of his apartment, even emptied his laundry basket, thinking maybe the neighbor’s cat had scurried its way under his feet into the apartment when he wasn’t looking. But no, the eyes felt…larger. He walked to the window and pulled the tattered blinds closed, blocking some of the light that he needed to do his work. One thing Ed never did was close the blinds because he was too afraid of the dark. For a while, he felt better, but not long after the blinds were shut did he start feeling the stare on the back of his neck again. As he looked around, the beat of his heart being constrained only by the ribs in his chest, he heard a large DING! He jumped up, doing a complete 180 in the air before landing and shaking all the contents of his apartment. “Come on Edster” he told himself “Quit being such a baby, its just the microwave you idiot. I mean, isn’t the night light enough?” He laughed at himself while heading to the kitchen for the now hot sustenance. But as he walked there, he could still feel those eyes on him. “Just ignore it” he thought out loud “Its just a feeling, it will go away”. But it didn’t and all during his lunch his palms sweat and he couldn’t stop tapping his foot on the floor. “That’s it” he thought “Music is all I need, a distraction”. So he turned on the sounds of Beastie Boys and danced with broken junkyard guitars during the song “Intergalactic”. He had almost completely forgot about the feeling when he stepped into the dimmed light of the guest bedroom ready to finish his current projects. He sat down on the carpet and looked around him at the many televisions. He could see his reflection in each of the screens and it gave him the creeps. Then he noticed something really strange. On each of the televisions a small red light was on. Many of the televisions weren’t even plugged in. He got up and fondled with one of the TV’s, pressing its off button to see what would happen. Not a thing. Then the generator went out, and he found himself face to face with a heap of bright tiny red lights. He began to sweat and it dripped off his nose onto one of the TV sets, causing a small spark and the rising of some smoke. “Oh Shit” he screamed. He got up quickly but didn’t know what to do, he couldn’t see anything. Ed was terrified in the dark and he stood there, frozen in his own home. Even in the dark he could still see his face in the screens, enhanced by a red shine. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands reminding himself that they were only televisions. He would have wet his oil and dirt stained blue jeans if the lights hadn’t come back on when they did. He could feel the cool churning of air from the fan above and opened his eyes to find everything the way it had been before the lights went out. The red lights were no longer lit.
