Hidtv: Software

Elias, out of a mix of boredom and a technician’s deep-seated curiosity, downloaded it. He loaded it onto a USB stick and plugged it into the service port on the back of his 4K television—a port the manufacturer insisted was for "diagnostics only."

The screen showed a room. His room. From a high angle, like a security camera in the ceiling corner. He saw himself, sitting on his couch, remote in hand, staring at the screen. On the screen within the screen, he saw himself, staring at the screen. An infinite regress of Elias Vosses, watching himself watch. hidtv software

Channel 11 was a live feed. A traffic camera in downtown Cleveland. But the timestamp read 1983. He watched his younger self, in a terrible brown coat, cross the street and drop a bag of groceries. He had forgotten that day. He had forgotten the sound of the glass jar of pickles shattering on the pavement. The HIDTV software brought back the sound—a wet, sharp pop . Elias, out of a mix of boredom and

Channel 3, which was now just a dead digital stream, began to shimmer. The blackness coalesced into grainy, black-and-white footage of a moon landing. But it wasn't Apollo 11. The astronaut’s suit had a strange, cobalt-blue stripe down the arm. The flag had too many stars. A title card flickered at the bottom: LUNAR MISSION 17 – UNAIRED CUT . Elias’s coffee cup froze halfway to his lips. He had worked on the Apollo video relays. There was no Mission 17. From a high angle, like a security camera

Then, a new channel appeared. No number. Just a prompt: WATCH LIVE? Y/N

The HIDTV software decoded one last, perfect ghost: the sound of his own heartbeat, from thirty seconds in the future, thudding loud and fast just before the door swung open.

Elias didn't know what "ghosts" meant. But he soon found out.